The featherweight champions in the UFC since it added the division in 2010 are probably the best of any class the UFC has.
Jose Aldo is already in the UFC Hall of Fame and Conor McGregor, Max Holloway and Alex Volkanovski will undoubtedly join him when their careers are over.
It's been a long journey with plenty of potholes along the way, but Rodriguez has come so far that as he awaits to fight a long-reigning champion who some regard as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, he's oozing confidence. Rodriguez believed in his talents early on and felt that given a shot, he'd be able to prove to the world what he's always felt. It was a loss, though, that convinced him he was firmly on the right track.
Eight months after losing to Holloway, Rodriguez demonstrated what the loss did for him. He faced Brian Ortega, an elite featherweight whose only losses were to, coincidentally enough, Volkanovski and Holloway, and put a severe beating on him. "Honestly, I felt it would have been the best thing to go straight to the champion," said Rodriguez, who gave the best performance of his illustrious career in submitting Emmett in the fourth round."With all due respect to my opponent, Josh, I always knew that I could beat him. That's why I didn't want to take that fight and wanted to go straight to fighting the current champion.
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