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Galal Yafai vs Francisco Rodriguez Jr Keys to Victory: Breaking down tactics of each fighter
His last time out, Galal Yafai stopped former world champion Sunny Edwards in six rounds in November.
A brilliant showing against Francisco Rodriguez Jr. at bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham, England, and live on DAZN , on Saturday night, and Yafai will push himself closer to a world title shot.
That makes this weekend's bout all the more pivotal.
Will Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) notch his 10th professional victory in spectacular fashion and inch his way near a possible clash with Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez? Or will Francisco Rodriguez (38-6-1, 26 KOs) hand the 2020 Olympic gold medalist his first pro loss?
With the stakes high, DAZN News analyzes the keys to victory for both fighters, breaking down each man's fighting tactics.
Galal Yafai’s Keys to Victory
Pressure
Galal Yafai is a forward-fighting force with seven of his nine victories coming by the way of knockout for great reason — his unrelenting pressure.
From the opening bell, Yafai is going to attempt to walk Francisco Rodriguez down, cutting the ring in half and reducing that half down to size as well.
When he needs to, Yafai will resort to pushing off, only to reset and repeat the process all over as he constantly aims to lock Rodriguez in the phone booth with him.
Turn the volume way up
With Yafai’s incessant pressure comes a high volume of punches that he has used to overwhelm nine opponents thus far as a pro.
It is not like the Birmingham, England fighter and 2020 Olympic gold medalist is going to switch up that strategy now.
Plus, Rodriguez has the high guard and hunched over, rounded-shoulders style that could naturally get him into trouble as Yafai presses forward and unloads a bevy of punches with the target of collecting his 10 th pro win.
Work the body, head combinations
As Yafai plows forward with pressure and a high punch count, one of the combinations that he throws best is his body-head work.
The southpaw will routinely make a deposit to the body with a hard hook before slashing across the jaw with another hook or splitting the guard with a straight, stiff shot.
He did this exceptionally well against Sunny Edwards in stopping his fellow Englishman in six rounds and should look to use this key to victory against Rodriguez as well.
Francisco Rodriguez Jr’s Keys to Victory
Change levels often, make deposits to the body
Watch Francisco Rodriguez Jr. carefully and you will notice an ability to change levels often. He does this to work his way into the pocket.
Against a pressure fighter like Galal Yafai, changing levels will either stand to freeze Yafai and have him walk through the tactics, altogether.
Either way, Rodriguez should try to deploy this method and ideally place shots to Yafai’s body in the hopes of impeding a chunk of that forward-fighting ability and slow the 2020 Olympic gold medalist down.
Be at a distance, turn Yafai
Rodriguez changing levels will move him closer to Yafai but he must still maintain a distance and turn the British fighter if possible.
This will force Yafai to redirect and might even frustrate him enough toward stifling some of that pressure he is known for bringing.
In addition, Rodriguez doing this effectively will put him in a position where he could launch his sweeping hooks to tally up some points and possibly rounds.
Time counterpunch to turn Yafai’s aggression against him
One way Rodriguez can show resistance to Yafai’s pressure is by using his aggression against him.
A timed counterpunch can do just that.
Rodriguez had success counterpunching at times against Junto Nakatani before losing to the Japanese fighter by a hard-fought unanimous decision back in November 2022.
He certainly has enough in his bag of boxing skills to draw from and connect with against Yafai.
It is more a matter of Rodriguez timing these counterpunches to maximize their effects and his chances for the upset.
