Rodriguez (23-0, 16 KOs) earned the billing by blasting Juan Francisco Estrada, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, Sunny Edwards and Carlos Cuadras from 2022-24, which marked his official entry as a perennial top player in the sport.

Rodriguez is a former unified 112-pound titleholder and now is The Ring, WBA, WBC and WBO 115-pound champion, getting ready to make his 118-pound debut against Antonio Vargas on June 13 in Arizona.

The bout is designed to fast-track Rodriguez’s eventual move to 122 pounds to face the undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue (33-0, 27 KOs), who is fresh off a convincing unanimous decision victory over Junto Nakatani on Saturday in Japan.

“Bam is already known as the ‘Legend Slayer,’ and it doesn’t get any better than Inoue,” Rodriguez’s career-long coach and manager, Robert Garcia, told The Ring. “I think the timing is perfect timing, if they end up fighting early next year. By then, we’ll have a lot of answers at 118, and we’ll have Bam back in the ring, hopefully by October, against another top bantamweight.

"We would love for it to be against WBC champion Takuma Inoue. It would be a perfect fight to build up the fight against Naoya. If the brother doesn’t want the fight, we’ll take on WBO champion Christian Medina. These will be great tests to see where we are at when it comes to moving to 122. We’ll know much more after the Vargas fight, but definitely we want the fight against Naoya Inoue, 100 percent.”

Garcia added that Rodriguez’s days as a 115-pounder are “more than likely over, especially if we continue to look at the Inoue fight” and that they’d be comfortable jumping straight to 122 pounds for Naoya Inoue without taking a test at junior featherweight.

“I don’t see a big difference in size since Jesse and Naoya. Both came up from the lower weight classes,” said Garcia. “Naoya is more developed and has more experience as a 122-pounder, and Jesse still hasn’t fought at 118. But Jesse has the skills to compete against the best in the world, and he wants to fight Inoue.”

Garcia also reflected on Inoue’s win against Nakatani and explained how they’d approach the encounter.

“I expected Inoue-Nakatani to be a war, and it turned out to be a more tactical and technical fight,” said Garcia. “I thought Nakatani would bring more pressure from the first round, but he waited longer than expected and eventually made it more difficult for himself by starting too late.

“Fighting someone like Inoue is not easy. You have to be smart and careful with the chances you take, because there is plenty of power coming back at you. We would have to fight smart against Inoue, too. Bam is not a big-time brawler like Junto, but he stays busy and active and throws a lot of punches, and we have to take advantage of that.

“Inoue is still very fast and powerful, but I think Jesse has the skills, smarts and accuracy as the technical fighter to pull it off. We definitely have all of the skills to beat Inoue.”

After besting Nakatani, Inoue, now The Ring’s No. 1 P4P fighter, said, “Of course [I would fight Rodriguez], but it is all about the timing.”

Turki Alalshikh expressed interest in staging the fight between Inoue, 33, and Rodriguez, 26, as early as January in Japan.

Rodriguez is all in on the super fight, as well.

“If that fight was presented to me now, I’d definitely go and take it,” Rodriguez said two weeks ago on the Mr. Verzace Podcast.

“I think me against Inoue would definitely be one of the biggest fights in the lower weight divisions. … I love going to Japan anyways, so if I were to fight out there for the first time, that would be great.”