Rodriguez vs Lopez Batte For Vacant IBF Title!
Puerto Rico’s Emmanuel “Manny” Rodriguez (21-2, 13 KOs;1NC) gets his chance to become a two-time world champion when he faces Melvin “Melo” Lopez (29-1, 19, KOs) for the vacant IBF bantamweight title. The fight will occur on August 12 at The Theatre at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and will air on Showtime.
Currently ranked second by the IBF at 118, Rodriguez previously won the IBF strap in May 2018 with a unanimous decision victory over Paul Butler. After successfully defending the once, Rodriguez lost the title in May 2019 when he was stopped in two rounds by then-WBA champion Naoya Inoue in a unification clash in the World Boxing Super Series Bantamweight tournament.
THE LONG ROAD BACK
It’s been quite the journey for Manny to get back to this position. He earned this title shot with a technical decision victory over Gary Antonio Russell in October 2022 in an IBF/WBA world title eliminator.
Rodriguez – Russell was part of an IBF-ordered four-person tournament. The other part of the mini-tournament was Vincent Astrolabio – Nikolay Potapov. Astrolabio defeated Potapov by sixth-round stoppage in December 2022. However, Astrolabio opted out of the tournament to fight for the vacant WBO bantamweight title.
In order for Rodriguez to achieve his goal of winning another world title, he must overcome Lopez, who is ranked third by the IBF at bantamweight. Lopez is on an eight-fight winning streak since suffering the lone setback in his career, a ninth-round stoppage loss to Jose Velazquez in October 2019. The most recent outing for Melo was a ten-round split-decision victory over Jobert in December 2022.
