Fresh off of victories on the same card, rising super middleweight contenders Aaron Pryor Jr. and Edwin Rodriguez are set to face each other early next year, January 14, 2011, on ESPN2 Friday Fight Nights. In his last bout, which took place 2 weeks ago on November 5, Pryor Jr. (15-2, 11 KOs) battered Dyah Davis over the course of 8 rounds to earn a unanimous decision victory. On that same card, Edwin Rodriguez (17-0, 13 KOs) scored a 9th round stoppage of James McGirt Jr. Both bouts were televised on Showtime's ShoBox: The New Generation series. Just last week, Aaron Pryor Jr.'s trainer, James Ali Bashir, would tell FightHype.com that he was hoping they would get Rodriguez for their next bout. "Dibella wants to do another fight with us and we want Edwin Rodriguez," Bashir proclaimed.
"We respect Rodriguez's skills and we think this fight would be the fight to bring out the best in Aaron and put us in the spotlight. We want 12 rounds for the title he picked up in the James McGirt Jr. fight. I feel in a tough fight, Aaron would beat Rodriguez," he continued, explaining his logic for wanting to pit the two up-and-coming fighters against each other. It looks like they got their wish, and Pryor will now have the opportunity to prove if he's going to be the next threat in the super middleweight division.