Not even the most impressive victory of Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez’s career could dissuade his trainer from thinking that his talented charge belongs at a lower weight class.

Rodriguez, the 22-year-old WBC 115-pound champion, defended his belt successfully against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai Saturday night in Rodriguez’s hometown of San Antonio, stopping the hardened Thai veteran in the eighth round.

Leading up to the fight, Rodriguez and his team stated that their preference was for Rodriguez to move back down to his natural weight class at 112 after making one title defense at 115. Rodriguez abruptly moved up to the 115-pound class in February to fight Carlos Cuadras for the vacant WBC belt after Sor Rungvisai pulled out because of an illness.

Given how dominant Rodriguez looked against one of the most battle-tested and durable of 115-pounders, one might expect his team to revise their idea of moving down in weight immediately.

Not so, according to Rodriguez’s longtime trainer Robert Garcia, who cited the ample title opportunities at 112 as chief motivation.

“I honestly do want him to go back down to 112,” Garcia told Little Giant Boxing. “If there’s a champion at 112 that is willing to fight we would love to.”

Garcia, however, suggested there may be difficulty making some title fights for Rodriguez at 112, especially with WBC flyweight titlist Julio Cesar Martinez. The Mexican champion was supposed to fight McWilliams Arroyo on the same card as Rodriguez but reportedly fell ill. This was the third time that Rodriguez had to pull out of the Arroyo fight; the two fought in 2019 in a bout that was rendered as a No Contest.

“I don’t want to mention names because at the end the WBC would be the easiest one, but with [Julio Cesar] ‘Rey’ Martinez we don’t know if he’s going to make weight, if he’s going to fight, if he’s gonna get sick, he’s done it many times so I really don’t know,” Garcia said.