Galal Yafai Vs. Francisco Rodriguez Jr. Breakdown

Galal Yafai boxes Francisco Rodriguez Jr. on June 21 as we look at the breakdown of the bout. 

Yafai defends his WBC Interim Flyweight Title for the first time following his Sunny Edwards stoppage in the fight before. That was Yafai’s biggest win as he extended his undefeated record to 9-0 with seven knockouts. That was his third straight stoppage, showing Yafai can hurt his opponents. Meanwhile, Rodriguez is a very experienced operator. He has a 39-6-1, with 27 stoppages. However, he has suffered losses against big names, coming unstuck against Kazuto Ioka, Junto Nakatani and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. 

Yafai likes to fight on the front foot, as he showed in the Edwards fight. He walked down Sunny, sitting down on his right hands with high volume. That was enough to stop Sunny in the sixth round. However, Rodriguez Jr. has a high guard. He uses his jab and changes angles before letting off shots to the body. Rodriguez will have to counter Yafai once the latter lets his hands go, given Yafai has a 78 percent KO rate.

Who Wins?

Yafai is boxing in his home city of Birmingham. That will prove pivotal, given his future ambitions. There is a desire for Yafai to face Jesse Rodriguez, who is considered one of the best P4P fighters out there. Just like Rodriguez dismantled Edwards, Yafai knows his win shows he can compete against the best. However, he must get past Francisco first. 

“I’m happy enough. You always want to do more and things like that, but I’ve had nine fights. I beat the best fighter at flyweight, it was Sunny [Edwards]. That’s not just my opinion. He was number one in Ring magazine, so that’s their opinion. And then I’ve got the WBC number one ranked fighter [Rodriguez]. He’s fought plenty of good fighters. He’s been in the game longer than I’ve been boxing, but he’s my age, which is crazy. So I’m doing it the hard way and there’s no other way I’d probably want to do it,” Yafai said

Current Card

Galal Yafai vs. Francisco Rodriguez Jr.; WBC interim flyweight title

Shabaz Masoud vs. Peter McGrail; junior featherweight

Conah Walker vs. Liam Taylor; Brtitish welterweight title

Hamza Uddin vs. Johsua Vallejo; flyweight

Ibraheem Sulaimaan vs. TBA; junior lightweight

Aaron Bowen vs. TBA; middleweight