Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez vs. Sunny Edwards fight prediction, odds,

After a breakout 2022 for Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez that saw him end the year on many Fighter of the Year lists, the 23-year-old is looking to close 2023 by becoming a unified champion for the first time in his young career. Rodriguez will put his WBO flyweight championship on the line Saturday night when he faces IBF champion Sunny Edwards.

Rodriguez’s 2022 campaign saw him pick up three wins. In February of that year, Rodriguez moved up a weight division on roughly one week’s notice to face Carlos Cuadras for the vacant WBC super flyweight championship. Rodriguez got the win and became the sport’s youngest active champion in the process. He would defend the title twice in 2022, beating Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Israel Gonzalez.

This year saw Rodriguez return to flyweight, vacating his super flyweight belt in the process, where he defeated Cristian Gonzalez Hernandez to pick up the vacant WBO title. A broken jaw suffered in the Hernandez fight resulted in surgery and a layoff for Rodriguez before he was able to prepare to face Edwards in a unification battle.

Edwards won his title in March 2021 with a decision win over Moruti Mthalane. Since winning the belt, Edwards has been an active champion, successfully defending the title four times. Most recently, Edwards picked up a win over Andres Campos in June.

Unlike Rodriguez, who has 11 stoppage victories in 18 career wins, Edwards primarily relies on his skills to win fights on the scorecards, with only four stoppage wins across 20 fights in his undefeated career. Edwards has gone nine fights without a stoppage win.

Up until Thursday’s press conference, the build to the fight was rather mild. That all changed when the fighters sat in front of the media, with Edwards claiming he could have bullied Rodriguez and his team but chose not to before launching into a tirade over Edwards’ association with SNAC Fighters, a nutrition program ran by…