By Dan Ambrose: WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (24-0, 21 KO’s) will be facing the ideal opponent for him to knockout viciously and look good in the process in facing the slugger Gabriel Rosado (21-5, 13 KO’s) on January 19th on HBO at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York, USA. Rosado is the perfect opponent for Golovkin because he likes to come forward looking to slug it out.

That would be okay except that Golovkin can really punch and Rosado only have moderately good power. This fight is going to end in an early knockout unless Rosado changes his fighting style and focuses on being a little more of a finesse fighter on January 19th.

Golovkin smashed an arguably better fighter than Rosado last September in destroying Grzegorz Proksa in five rounds. Proksa, who can punch a lot harder than Rosado, was knocked down three times in losing that fight, and his power never bothered Golovkin. It might have if Golovkin wasn’t knocking him down every time he turned out.

Rosado has a seven fight win streak going into this fight. He looked good in defeating Jesus Soto-Karass by a 5th round knockout, and blowing out Sechew Powell and Ayi Bruce. Those are good fighters and Rosado showed that he’s a level above them. However, we’re talking junior middleweights here, and Golovkin is a middleweight.

It’s a whole new ballgame for Rosado because he’s not fighting a 154 pounder in Golovkin. He’ll be dealing with a solid guy with knockout power in both hands, the type that he hasn’t seen since he was blown out by Alfredo Angulo in two rounds in 2009. That was a long time ago, and Rosado possibly has improved since then, but I don’t think his chin has. If Golovkin taps his chin with a big shot I expect Rosado to fall over just like he did when Angulo was putting it on him.