Julian Rodriguez overcame injury, depression, and ready to be a champ

Julian Rodriguez has won in boxing throughout his life. An injury slowed his progress to the top, but a win against Jose Pedraza would up his status. 

When Julian Rodriguez began competing as an 8-year-old in boxing, he made a habit of winning. He won numerous national titles between 2012 and 2013, is an undefeated professional, but control of his career was taken away when a serious injury brought his career to a sudden stop.

Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs) is 26 years old today, but he remembers his first time stepping into a boxing gym at 7. His mother was taking classes to become an aesthetician, so babysitting duties fell on his dad. Rodiguez’s father took him to the gym to get a workout while watching his son at the same time.

His heroes were WWE wrestlers like Rey Mysterio, but someone suggested that he try real fighting instead of playing make-believe.

“I was actually a big fan of the WWF at the time. That’s what it was called,” Rodriguez recalled to FanSided. “So I would go in the ring and try to do like the Rey Mysterio moves, and all that and my dad would turn around hitting the bag, and it’s like, ‘Hey, man, if you’re gonna get in there to do the real s**t, not to do that fake stuff.’ So I just got up and started hitting the bag.”

Rodriguez was encouraged to continue his boxing training by sparring. That first spar changed his life.

“And after, I believe two or three weeks of just hitting the bag, you know, as just something to pass the time, they put me in to spar with a kid who was a lot bigger than me and about two or three years older than me,” said Rodriguez. “And I wrecked this kid, man. I was sitting there just playing a game. I considered it like a game of tag. And after like a one or two rounds, that kid was crying and bleeding out his nose.”

Seeing his natural boxing talent, Rodriguez’s father and trainer encouraged him to get serious about boxing, which he did from that moment on.

As an amateur, Rodriguez amassed a record of 221-9. He was an alternate for the 2012 Olympics in London but felt like the amateur system was biased against him and other American boxers. Nevertheless, he won the 2013 National Golden Gloves tournament and turned professional that same year at 18 years old.

Rodriguez continued his winning ways as a professional. He was active and collecting victories, but a major injury temporarily stopped his progress.

“It was a torn labrum,” said Rodriguez.

Julian Rodriguez feels like it’s his destiny to become a boxing champion

“We really consider it’s like it was my first major loss in the sport of boxing,” continued Rodriguez. “I’ve been winning my whole life and bred to be this champion my whole life and had a winning confident mentality. And this was the only time that I was down and couldn’t do s**t about it. So that definitely rewired my mentality and just everything about me.”

Rodriguez tried to rush back, but he wasn’t healed. He needed more time to recover and missed all of 2018. He never doubted that he would return to boxing, but being forced away from boxing impacted him mentally and emotionally.

“I fell into a little bit of a depression,” said Rodriguez. “I started to get anxiety attacks. I was one of those guys that I was like, oh, what do you mean, anxiety? Come on, just focus and breathe. I was very naive about the subject because it never hit me. Anxiety doesn’t care, or that depression, mental illness doesn’t care about who you are, how old you are, what you do for a living, what color you are, anything like that.”

Rodriguez credits his support system consisting of his family, siblings, and two children for helping him overcome his depression. They got him through his lowest points, and he bounced back in a big way.

In his last two fights, Rodriguez knocked his opponents down a combined seven times, which resulted in two TKO victories. On Saturday, June 12, he meets former two-time world champion Jose Pedraza on the undercard of Shakur Stevenson vs. Jeremia Nakathila. Pedraza (28-3, 13 KOs) signifies Rodriguez’s chance to step into the super lightweight division’s elite standing.

Rodriguez feels like overcoming his depression and anxiety has been one of his biggest victories to date.

“But the strongest points in my life, up to date, was overcoming those aspects of myself,” said Rodriguez confidently. “I feel like once I overcame that, dude, I could kill a horse with my bare hands, man.”

That’s bad news for Pedraza. Pedraza has the stronger résumé, but Rodriguez is six years younger than Pedraza and the more powerful puncher. Rodriguez believes he has every edge over Pedraza.

“But as far as compared to me, my opinion, none of his tools are sharper than mine,” said Rodriguez. “He’s not quicker than me. He’s not smarter than me. He doesn’t have better footwork than me. He’s not more powerful than me. He’s not bigger than me. He doesn’t throw more punches than me.”

There’s a certainty about Rodriguez that makes him a dangerous fighter. A win against Pedraza would be a game-changer. A knockout would make him feared. Tune into ESPN or ESPN Deportes on Saturday, June 12, to see if Rodriguez can take another step towards realizing his dreams. Main event coverage begins at 10 p.m. ET.