I'm not gonna write much, but: Gonzalez: - Super-HW gold medalist at Pan-American Games and highly decorated amateur - Beat two future undisputed heavyweight world champions: - Lennox 'The Lion' Lewis - Riddick 'Big Daddy' Bowe- Beat four Olympic medalists: - Lennox 'The Lion' Lewis (x1 Gold) - Riddick 'Big Daddy' Bowe (x1 Silver) - Tyrell Biggs (x1 Gold) - Teofilo Stevenson (x3 Gold)- Beat highly ranked world contenders & former world champion(s): - Renaldo Snipes - Alex Stewart - Greg Page- Fought for a world title: - Bowe v. Gonzalez (WBO Heavyweight World)- Is 0-1 against IBHOF fighters: - Riddick Bowe (L) Rodrigues: - Not much of an amateur background - Former WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight titleholder - Defended (and lost) his title 1 time: - Evander Holyfield, at the time, former Undisputed Cruiserweight World titleholder, and future Undisputed Heavyweight World titleholder- Former WBF Heavyweight World titleholder - Defended (and retained) his title 3 times: - Johnny Nelson, future WBO Cruiserweight World titleholder (x2) - Dave Fiddler- Is 0-2 against IBHOF fighters: - Evander Holyfield (L) - George Foreman (L)
Gonzalez had a lot of momentum at one point coming off of the olympics, Rodrigues was always a gatekeeper/journeyman.
Adilson is the level of opponent that Gonzalez feasted on. It’s a whitewash: Jorge Luis in two or three.
in all fairness this is a decent match. I liked both these guys - good mid level fighters who are unfairly derided a fair bit these days but neither were bums, just a level or 2 below genuine world class. Rodriguez was the more consistant but his record was heavily padded with lots of fellow latin americans but he was plenty active and was more capable than given credit for. JLG, great amateur, looked the part and was promising until Bowe and 'Spoon battered him. I think Gonzalez wins here but he would be made to work until he finds Rodriguez less than granite chin with one of his uppercuts - may take him to rounds 6-8 but he gets him in the end
Rodrigues was a case of a guy that was mentally unfocused during the fight... he could make a great round and in the next one he would be all over the place as you can see in the Holyfield fight. He could box and could punch with his right hand, there was a hammer in that right hand... but he had a bipolar style, a bad chin because IMO he never saw the punches coming due to his lack of focus, he could be very overconfident when winning.. and could panic once losing.
