Demetrius Andrade can be WBO champion for a long time, says Andre Ward

By Boxing News - 06/15/2014 - Comments

andrade777By Scott Gilfoid: Last night was WBO light middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade’s coming out party on HBO with him giving a beat down to challenger Brian Rose (25-2-1, 7 KO’s) in stopping him in 7 rounds on the undercard of the Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Chris Algieri card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

We saw the 6’1” Andrade showcase his talents with him opening up his toolbox of weaponry and unloading on an over-matched Rose with everything he had. Credit Rose for being able to soak up sickening punishment until his corner pulled the plug on the fight in the 7th round and had it stopped at 1:19 by referee Michael Griffin.

At the time of the stoppage, Rose was bleeding profusely from a cut on the bridge of his nose and taking massive head shots against the ropes. It’s possible that Rose might have been able to weather the storm to make it out of the round, but what for? He wasn’t going anywhere even the fight had made it to the 8th. It was just going to be more of the same with Andrade unloading on him with straight left hands to the head, and brutal right hooks.

“You can’t argue with pedigree,” Ward said about Andrade last night. “He has the [amateur] pedigree. If he stays focused and continues to work hard, he should be champion for a long time. He’s a former Olympian. He’s a tall left hander with a tremendous skillset and he has a boatload of confidence, and he backs it up with his work ethic.”

Andrade is in a situation where his talent and size makes it tough for him to get important fights. None of the top fighters – Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather Jr – has shown any interest in fighting him, and I doubt that they ever will.

Andrade would be better off moving up to the middleweight division where he can go after the IBF or WBO titles against the likes of Sam Soliman and Peter Quillin. I would say for him to go after Miguel Cotto, but I doubt that Cotto would agree to fight him due to his size, talent, power, youth and southpaw stance. But at least if Andrade wins one of the middleweight titles, he’ll have a better class of contenders to face compared to where he’s at right now.



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