Boxing fans of a certain age don’t have to strain their memory to remember a time when the only way to find out about a 115-pound world title fight, especially one outside the United States, was by reading the physical pages of this very publication.

The image of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez walking the red carpet through BLVD World in Riyadh at Tuesday’s grand arrivals for Ring IV, surrounded by pyrotechnics and being feted by the industry as one of the greatest living fighters, was a sign of how much things have changed – in no small part because of him.

The Ring Magazine junior bantamweight champion will defend his title, in addition to his WBC and WBO belts, against Fernando Martinez, the No. 1-rated 115-pounder and WBA titleholder, as one of the featured attractions of the Ring IV event on Saturday. Fans won’t have to wait a month to read the recap in the magazine, or many more months for a VHS or DVD of the fight to arrive in their mailboxes. In fact, they’ll just need to click a button on DAZN, and one of the best fights in boxing will appear.

Rodriguez is a generational talent who arrived on the scene at precisely the right time. “Bam” grew up in an era in which barriers for fighters at lighter weights were being broken down by the likes of Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada, alongside contemporaries such as Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Carlos Cuadras. The quartet engaged in an era-defining series of bouts that punctured the Western marketplace’s resistance to fighters in lower weight classes with undeniable skill first and foremost, but thrilling encounters, as well.

In a matter of two years, Rodriguez emerged on short notice to drop and defeat Cuadras, then emphatically stop Sor Rungvisai and Estrada. In the time in between, he also melted back down to 112 pounds just for fun, and took out the division’s trickiest fighter at the time, Sunny Edwards. In his most recent bout, he stopped Phumelela Cafu to become unified champion at 115.

Along the way, Rodriguez has benefitted from a friendship and sparring sessions with Chocolatito. The benefits for Rodriguez have been tangible, as any amount of time in the gym with one of this era’s true legends is bound to be, but also symbolic. Gonzalez spending time in the gym aiding Rodriguez last year felt like a tacit passing of the torch. Chocolatito was the best lighter weight fighter in the world, “your favorite fighter’s favorite fighter,” the go-to contrarian pick for the best fighter on the planet period. But those superlatives now belong to Bam.

With the explosion of streaming services and broadcast outlets in 2025, fighters in Rodriguez’s weight neighborhood no longer have to battle for on-air real estate the way they once did. That said, fighters in lighter weights are still behind the eight ball when it comes to mainstream fandom. As an example, despite Rodriguez being The Ring’s No. 6-rated fighter pound-for-pound, his bout against Martinez is billed beneath fighters ranked below him despite three sanctioning body titles being on the line as well. This is, of course, no slight to the likes of David Benavidez or Brian Norman or Devin Haney, whose popularity and success have afforded them their top billing. Rather, it’s an indication of the uphill battle Rodriguez is still fighting, and winning, one round at a time.

There is little precedent for what Rodriguez is achieving at the moment in terms of accolades and popularity. Generally speaking, divisions thrive when there is a central figure acting as its nucleus, a leading figure that other fighters can chase and be measured against. For close to a decade, the prospect of facing Canelo Alvarez was central to the narrative of any competitor capable of making the same weight as him, in the same way it was with Floyd Mayweather. In the United States marketplace, only two American fighters in the modern era of boxing broadcasting have been able to break the threshold and receive the kind of treatment their heavier contemporaries have: Johnny Tapia and Michael Carbajal.

Carbajal is credited with breaking the glass ceiling for fighters in lower weight classes. A household name coming out of the 1988 Olympics with a silver medal, Carbajal enjoyed national television exposure right out of the gate, and ultimately took part in the first pay-per-view attraction involving junior flyweights against Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez in 1993, and cashed the first million dollar payday for a fighter his size, as well. A few years later, Tapia would hit the scene and become one of the central figures of HBO Boxing for a period of time, climaxing with his memorable bout against intra-state rival Danny Romero, which produced a sold-out crowd at the Thomas & Mack Center so rambunctious that the network reported “extra security measures” were added to the venue’s entrance.

Carbajal and Tapia put together Hall of Fame careers, but had their stumbles along the way and were eclipsed by bigger stars in subsequent years. Carbajal would lose two rematches with Gonzalez, and would be on Oscar De La Hoya undercards four years later. In Tapia’s case, even when he fought Manuel Medina for a world title at Madison Square Garden four years after Romero, his fight was billed beneath the 10-rounder between Jameel McCline and Shannon Briggs.

Talent alone has never been enough for fighters to sustain popularity or premium billing in the U.S. Just ask Mark “Too Sharp” Johnson, one of the most gifted operators of his era and in the orbit of both Carbajal and Tapia during his peak. Johnson told Percy Crawford of Zenger News in 2021 that he attended Tapia-Romero with a sign that read “Can I Play? Can I Get Next?” According to Johnson, the sign was taken away from him, and he did not get next. He did receive exposure on Showtime, but very little relative to his Ring rankings at the time. In 1998, he ranked ahead of Shane Mosley, Ricardo Lopez, Mayweather, Naseem Hamed, and even Tapia. The next year, he would be ranked ahead of Erik Morales and Bernard Hopkins.

In Rodriguez’s case, timing, in addition to his combination of attributes, may allow him to become even more anomalous than he already is. He’s young, American, he produces highlight reel knockouts, he’s stylish and cool outside of the ring, and he is potentially two wins away from becoming the first undisputed champion in the 115-pound division’s history. If Rodriguez defeats Martinez and then goes on to beat the winner of Kenshiro Teraji-Wilibaldo Garcia (which appears to be the scheduling plan), he’ll have done something no man has done before, further cementing himself as the type of nucleus figure needed to change the narrative of lighter weight classes forever.

Unlike his predecessors, there are no barriers in the way of fans, particularly more casual ones, finding out about Bam’s greatness. There are still some fight fans yet to discover him, but those numbers diminish with every explosive performance of his, because to see Rodriguez on film – or better yet in person – is to watch something undeniably brilliant. If his run continues in the way it’s gone thus far, it might not be long before we’re asking a question we haven’t posed about a fighter his size since his friend Chocolatito in 2017: Does the best fighter in the world weigh 115 pounds?