By Jason Kim: WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (24-0, 21 KO’s) will be defending his title against Gabriel Rosado (21-5, 13 KO’s) this Saturday night on HBO from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York.
Golovkin has a fighter on his hands who seems to believe firmly that he’s going to win the fight and not only win it but dominate the action. That kind of fighter can be dangerous because they for Golovkin and he can’t afford to let Rosado have any kind of success early in the fight.
Rosado had some problems with his career in 2009 and 2010 in suffering losses to Alfredo Angulo and Derek Ennis, but he’s really turned things around by rattling off seven consecutive victories over quality opposition. You can see the difference in Rosado’s performances against Ennis and Angulo from the way he’s fighting now.
Rosado has clearly improved a great deal, and it would be hard to see either Angulo or Ennis handing with him now. Rosado is only 26, and his losses in the past were a youth thing where he was still trying to find his way in the game but he’s definitely gotten to the point where he can be competitive with anyone at 154.
Whether Rosado can be competitive with 160 pound fighters like Golovkin remains to be seen, but I don’t see why not. Six pounds is really nothing. It’s not advantage until you start talking 20 pounds or more, and even then the bigger fighter would still need skills to beat the smaller guy.
Golovkin destroyed his last opponent Grzegorz Proksa by a 5th round TKO in his first fight on HBO last September. A lot of boxing fans thought the fight would be a competitive one, but Golovkin showed early on that Proksa wasn’t in his class by putting him down in the 1st round. Golovkin continued to batter Proksa in the following rounds, knocking him down in the 4th and 5th rounds. The fight was halted in the 5th after Proksa hit the canvas for the third time.
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