On Saturday at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, the ESPN co-feature sees former two-weight champion Jose "Sniper" Pedraza (pictured) against Julian "Hammer Hands" Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs) in a ten-round junior welterweight bout. Pedraza is 28-3 with 13 KOs. Two days before the fight, at the final press conference, this is what the fighters had to say:
Jose Pedraza
"Julian is a great fighter. He has a lot of power {and is} a young, strong fighter. But as you mentioned, I have the experience and am well prepared for Saturday."
"It would mean a lot to join all the Puerto Rican greats to have won world titles in three weight classes."
"After the loss to Zepeda, I focused a lot more on training and training styles that I'm going to show on Saturday, everything that I've been working on."
Julian Rodriguez
"It's a pleasure to be here once again. I'm grateful to have fought twice during the pandemic here, thanks to Bob Arum and Top Rank. It's just another fight for me. It's a big step up.I had a tremendous camp. Everything went well. No injuries, no nothing. I'm ready to go Saturday."
"I had a lot of great sparring partners throughout camp, but when I was in Vegas, I sparred Yordenis Ugas, a big 147. I trained with Ismael Salas and all those Cuban Olympians, those southpaws. I've had hundreds of fights in my life. I've been fighting since I was 7 years old, so I doubt he's going to come out with a style I haven't seen before. And if he does, I'll be ready for it."
"There were a few hiccups with the injury that I had a few years ago, but I believe I'm on that top-tier level. A lot of people that were in my class growing up , the same age group, they're world champions now. I feel like that's where I belong, and that's what I am going to prove on Saturday."
