There reached a point where Emmanuel Rodriguez no longer cared who was next.
It’s been a long road back to the ring for the former bantamweight titlist, who was always going to fight this weekend regardless of opposition. Rodriguez’s role on this Saturday’s Showtime telecast began as a standby opponent in the event that either side of the original headliner fell through.
As it turned out, both participants—Nordine Oubaali and Nonito Donaire—were unable to make the final cut, leaving the final Showtime card of 2020 with a brand-new main event this weekend at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Once slated to face Donaire, Rodriguez will take on unbeaten Filipino contender Reymart Gaballo in an interim title fight.
“It wasn’t really that frustrating, nor difficult to adjust to the new opponent,” Rodriguez told BoxingScene.com. “When I got the call (to face Donaire), we prepared for that style of fight. Once we learned it was (Gaballo), not much has changed these past two weeks. We were just ready to fight anyone.”
Rodriguez (19-1, 12KOs) originally replaced Oubaali, the unbeaten bantamweight titlist who was forced to withdraw from a mandatory title defense versus Donaire due to testing positive for COVID-19. An agreement was reached for Rodriguez and Donaire to meet for the vacant title, with Oubaali free to challenge for the belt whenever he is once again healthy.
Those plans changed once it was revealed that Donaire also tested positive earlier this month. The former four-division champ and future Hall of Famer has contested those test results, insisting it was a false positive and that he’s still ready to fight. Nevertheless, Rodriguez instead faces Donaire’s countryman in Gaballo (23-0, 20KOs), an unbeaten 24-year old knockout artist from General Santos City, Philippines.
The show features another bantamweight fight, as Gary Antoine Russell—the younger brother of featherweight titlist Gary Russell Jr.—faces former 118-pound titlist Juan Carlos Payano. Rodriguez was just as willing to face either one of them, if only for the sake of getting in a fight for the first time since a title reign-ending 2nd round knockout loss to Naoya Inoue last May in Glasgow, Scotland.
For a brief time, there existed the concern that he would have to wait until 2021 to end his inactive stretch.
“I admit, it did briefly cross my mind,” notes Rodriguez, who saw a clash with former bantamweight titlist Luis Nery fall apart at the scale when Nery missed weight last November. “Not getting that fight (with Nery) and waiting out the pandemic, then all of this happened, I started to wonder if it was more bad luck coming.
“But I’m thankful for my team (including manager Juan Orengo) making sure there was always something lined up. They assured me every step of the way that I would be fighting (this weekend) and to just stay ready for anything.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
