By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Eddie Hearn thinks that his fighter #1 WBO Brian Rose (25-2-1, 7 KO’s) will learn from his defeat at the hands of WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade (21-0, 14 KO’s) and return back to the top in the future.
Rose was knocked down twice by Andrade last night and stopped on his feet in the 7th round in their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Rose had talked about having earned his No.1 ranking and his title shot.
Rose had said that he wasn’t impressed with Andrade beforehand and that it was him with all the pressure on his shoulder. But unfortunately for Rose, he failed to prove that he belonged in the same ring with him. In fact, you can make a strong argument that Rose didn’t belong in the ring with Andrade last night, because he showed none of the basic fundamental skills that you’re normally see from fighters ranked No.1, such as head movement, hand speed, power, good defensive skills, movement, and high work rate. Rose was just there last night, soaking up punishment with his gloves glued to his head.
Hearn said “Gutted for Brian earned the shot but was ultimately outclassed. Learn from the experience and come again.”
When Hearn says that Rose will “come again,” I’m assuming that he means that he’ll be fighting for another world title in the future. If that’s the case, I hope Rose fights some good opposition to get another title shot, and if he beats that opposition, I hope there’s no controversy involved, because I felt that Rose lost to Javier Maciel last October in their WBO 154-pound eliminator fight that took place in the UK.
Rose was given a 12 round split decision victory over Maciel despite being outworked and out-landed by him. I had Maciel winning easily. The thing is if the judges had given Maciel the victory, we probably would have seen a far better fight last night between the hard hitting Maciel against Andrade than what we did see with Rose not having the power, head movement or inclination to let his hands go.
The WBO needs to work on their ranking of fighters, because last night’s fight put a spotlight on their poor ranking given that they had Brian Rose ranked above the following fighters in their WBO rankings: 2. Saul Alvarez, 3. Miguel Cotto, 5. James Kirkland, 6. Jermell Charlo and 7. Vanes Martirosyan. I think Rose is a fine domestic level fighter, but there’s no way on earth that I believe that he deserved to be ranked above those guys. That just seemed like some really wacky ranking by the WBO in putting Rose at No.1 above those guys. I could be wrong, but I think if Rose was thrown in the ring against any of those aforementioned fighters last night, we would have seen him getting knocked out by all five of them without any problems. That’s why you want to see the sanctioning bodies getting their acts together when it comes to ranking fighters, because it’s not good for the fans when they rank someone at No1, and then we see mismatches like we did last night between Rose and Andrade. I thought Rose looked like someone who didn’t belong in the top 50, let alone at No.1.
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