[Previous entry: "Was The Power of Earnie Shavers Overrated?"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "'Merciless' Mary McGee Steps Up On The Mound For 'Steel Yard Brawl!'"]
07/23/2008 Archived Entry: "Francisco Rodriguez: More Relaxed, Looks to Win Friday, Help Others Relax in Long Run!"
Francisco Rodriguez: More Relaxed, Looks to Win Friday, Help Others Relax in Long Run!
Photos and interview by Juan C. Ayllon
Rodriguez (left) moments before stopping his last opponent, Priolo
CHICAGO—Standing five feet, five inches at roughly 118 pounds, Francisco Rodriguez is an unimposing laid back 24 year-old. He’s married to his high school sweetheart and looks to resume college after he returns from his honeymoon. You’d never guess that he’s the same guy who’s nicknamed “El Nino Azteca” that whips crowds up into delirium with his whirlwind style. Yep, that’s him, a professional boxer with a record of 12-2 with 8 knockouts.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he graduated from Chicago’s Calvin Park High School in 2002 and as an amateur boxer won the Chicago Golden Gloves multiple times, won Nationals and was a quarterfinalist at the Olympic Trials before kicking off his pro career with a third round technical knockout of Leshaun Blair on January 14, 2005.
His father, Evaristo, a machine operator, and his brother Tito train him. With their help, Rodriguez ran up a record of 11-1 and 7 knockouts (his lone loss by unanimous decision to Fidencio Reyes in May 2006) before facing Andre Wilson (9-1-1, 8 KO’s) under the hot TV lights on February 15, 2008. Ahead for the better portions of two rounds, that night Rodriguez got excited—and careless—and got caught at the end of the second round. Rodriguez went down hard. He rose, but against his wishes, was waved off by referee Celestino Ruiz. He’d lost by technical knockout.
Shoring up his defense, he rebounded in May, stopping the vastly more experienced Angel Priolo, who sported a record of 30-6 with 20 knockouts to Rodriguez’s 11-2 with 7 knockouts, in three rounds.
Now, this Friday, he faces Ciudad, Mexico’s Alex Becerra (19-6, 9 KO’s) who’s been stopped in three of his last four bouts. An easy mark, you might say, but those losses were against shakers and movers with a combined record of 53-1. One of those, Yonnhy Perez, won the vacant NABF Bantamweight Title over Oscar Andrade in June. It looks like Rodriguez may be in for a war.
On how training has been going:
[It’s been] pretty good. Today is actually my last day. Tomorrow is going to stretch and doing a couple rounds of warm-up and that’s about it.
It went kind of tough. I mean, we’re fighting a 10 round fight, so [we trained] in the sparring sessions for a long time, so it went pretty good.
I was training with Barbaro Zepeda—I did a couple rounds with him; I also would train with Gadiel Andaluz, ‘cause his fight got cancelled; and I was training with some other kids—amateurs, just to keep me moving and to have a couple fresh guys in there to make sure I was ready for a 10 round fight.
Barbaro is fighting against Ivan [Rodriguez] Friday night also.
On continuing to make weight:
Well, you know, it’s not that difficult; I have a good diet. So, I do get up everyday, try and put the running seven days a week. Once I start sparring a lot, I might take a day off during the week. I work out Monday through Friday in the gym and maybe run seven to six days a week. I run like between 45 minutes and an hour. It’s pretty tiring at the end! (He laughs.) Maybe between five and six miles, I guess.
Sometimes I spar like three times, sometimes two; [it depends on] the guys that I’m sparring being available.
On what he knows about his opponent, Becerra, on Friday night:
I looked at a video, but it was just one round—he lost. He got stopped in one round. So, I mean, it was really not that much to get off of him. So, we’re just expecting a war, you know, him being ready to fight and he’s coming here just to get a victory and I’m going to try and prevent that from happening.
On how he’s feeling since his loss two fights ago to Andre Wilson:
You know, I felt good. I mean, after that fight, I was pretty upset with the way things happened. The fight shouldn’t have been stopped. I was okay. I was winning both rounds. So, I got knocked down, but I got up right away and I wasn’t stumbling. I even told the ref that I was ready to go, and I guess he decided to call it off. He never asked me if I was okay.
On what he’s learned since then:
You know what? My dad—my coach—told me to calm down a little bit more, and make sure my hands are always covering my face, my chin, and covering my body—that’s one of the things that I worked out in my last fight (and for this fight, also). And also making sure that my body shots are being thrown really good, because that’s one of my best techniques, working the body.
On his approach to boxing:
I guess I’m a boxer-brawler, depending on the opponent. If I know the boxer is hurt, you know, I’ll keep on going until I try to stop the fight. The first round, I try to see what they’ve got and try to box. If I can win by boxing, I’ll do that and if I have to step it up and kind of brawl a little bit, I will do the same thing also.
On what's next:
I don’t know if you read, but I’m getting married in a couple weeks from Friday, so after the fight, hopefully everything comes out good, we are getting married and going on a honeymoon and take a break from the gym and relax. That’s something I’ve been needing from boxing for a while. I’ve been boxing non-stop for a while now, so I need a good vacation.
We’ve actually been married through city hall, but we are [now] getting married through the church. We got married in city hall, because that’s the way they do it now, first city hall and then church. That’s what we’re doing now.
We’ve been married for over two years. No kids.
On a previous photo of Francisco and his wife with two kids (see above):
They’re my nieces—my coach and my brother, they’re his kids. We plan on having kids, too. Now that we’re getting married through [a Catholic] church, maybe now in the future, we’ll come up with a kid!
On his background:
My dad was a professional boxer in Mexico and did a couple of fights here. That was one thing.
I started boxing at five—[I] took a couple of fights. I started again when I was twelve. I did Golden Gloves—I won five years. I won the National and then I won the Eastern trials to qualify for the Olympic trials. I lost there at the quarterfinals. We were winning the whole fight. The Olympic style, they give you the score after each round. I was winning the first, second and third round by three or four points, and at the fourth round, this guy beat me by like 11 points! And I had him with a busted nose. I had him full of blood and he still beats me, so in a way, I kind of got depressed when I came back home.
So, I stopped going to the gym. I mean, I would go everyday, but I’d be there 20 minutes or half an hour and I’d tell my dad, ‘I want to go home.’ He’d say, ‘Why?’ and I said I didn’t feel like being there anymore.
My girlfriend at the time—my wife, now—she would tell me, ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to get a job, or box, or going to school? What are you going to do?’ I would tell her that I wasn’t sure. I was just really depressed.
And I decided to give it a try as a professional boxer without telling anybody—the only one I told was my father and my brother. And, I just did it.
I told my girlfriend if she should see me go fight and she said, ‘Oh, yeah, you know, I’ve never seen you.’ So, my friend’s in a pro fight and she was there. I was in the dressing room when she text [messaged] me, ‘Why are these guys fighting without their headgear?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you: I’m turning pro. Today is my first pro fight.’
She was excited. But my first pro fight, I got cut on top of my head from a head butt.
So, she supports me, but she doesn’t like me doing it. She said if I like it, she’s there for me and should I decide to hang them up, then I guess she’ll be happy!
On how long he plans on continuing boxing:
You know what? Maybe [I’ll box until] my early thirties—probably not till 35 like the rest of the boxers, depending on how my career goes—maybe 32 or 33?
On his plans for school and life beyond boxing:
Yeah, you know what? I was going to school and now that I’m getting married, I took some time off just to get money saved for it and get stuff ready. But hopefully after the wedding and I come back, I’ll go back to school.
I’m planning on going to [study] massage therapy for athletes. I know a lot of boxers that get hurt in their back or [suffer] soreness. That’s something that I would like to do and help out up and coming fighters from here.
I’m looking at a couple schools, but the only one I checked out was Olympia College down at Skokie. I like to get a massage and being relaxed!
On his prediction for Friday’s fight:
I’m planning on coming out with a win under my belt again, and we’ll see how everything goes. I’m ready for a tough fight, so if it goes 10 rounds, I’m ready for it, and if it doesn’t, you know I’ll also be happy to get out of there pretty soon, pretty fast!
