By Jeff Sorby: Russell Peltz, the promoter for Gabriel Rosado (21-6, 13 KO’s), thinks Rosado fought well enough last Saturday in his 7th round TKO loss to WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golokvin (25-0, 22 KO’s) to win fans from the gutsy performance.
Peltz says Rosado was prevented from going after Golovkin the way they wanted him to because of a bad cut Rosado suffered in the 2nd round from a hard jab by Golovkin.
Peltz said to ringtv “The game plan was to box for four rounds and then to come forward after that, but the blood changed everything…I think that Rosado actually gained more fans with his gutty performance.”
Well, Rosado did actually come forward after the 4th round and fight reasonably well in the 5th round. That was easily the best round of the fight for Rosado since he was able to land some significant shots and bruise both of Golovkin’s eyes in that round. That’s where Golovkin’s bruises came from in the fight. However, Golovkin changed the fight in the 6th when he was hurt Rosado with a right hand at the very start of the round before Rosado’s cut had started to bleed again.
Golovkin didn’t hurt Rosado because he couldn’t see. It was Golovkin’s power that hurt Rosado in that round. From that point on, Rosado rarely engaged and just ran around the ring, as if he didn’t want to get hit. I don’t think that was because of the blood or the cut. It looked more like Rosado was just trying to survive to make it to the final bell.
Do I think Rosado won fans from that performance? I personally wasn’t at all impressed with Rosado one bit. If anything, I was disappointed in the extreme with his performance because he was running even before he suffered a cut in the 2nd and he just looked scared and overwhelmed. There was nothing in Rosado’s performance that you could really be impressed with other than his ability to soak up punishment while moving in constant circles. From that performance I don’t particularly care to ever see him again.
I think Rosado would be beaten easily by the top junior middleweights Austin Trout, Saul Alvarez and Cornelius Bundrage. Rosado might be able to beat the WBO 154 pound champ Zaurbek Baysangurov, but I think even that would be a very hard fight for him. Maybe some boxing fans were impressed by Rosado, but I didn’t see anything to be impressed with. He was dull to watch because of his running and as soon as he tried to trade with Golovkin, he got hurt very quickly. After that, Rosado ran in the 6th and 7th until the fight was stopped. It’s boring to watch runners and that’s pretty much what Rosado was last Saturday, a runner that was bleeding all over the place. Would the outcome have been different if he wasn’t cut and if he didn’t run? No, the only difference is I think Rosado would have been knocked out by the 2nd round if he didn’t run.