Kirkland vs. Rosado off Hopkins-Kovalev card

By Boxing News - 09/23/2014 - Comments

kirkland4534By Dan Ambrose: The James Kirkland vs. Gabriel Rosado fight is now off of the November 8th undercard of the Bernard Hopkins vs. Sergey Kovalev card, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The fight was never officially finalized to start with. In place of the Kirkland-Rosado fight will possibly be welterweight contenders Luis Carlos Abregu and Sadam Ali facing off.

“Kirkland out of the Rosado fight on BHop-Kovalev card,” Rafael said on his twitter. “New fight likely Abregu vs. Sadam Ali. [Top Rank vs. GB].”

Kirkland is being rumored as a possible opponent for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to fight instead on December 6th in place of Joshua Clottey. If Kirkland can get the Canelo fight, he’ll likely get a bigger payday than he would have if he’d been in with Rosado.

As good as the Kirkland vs. Rosado fight would have been, Abregu-Ali might actually be the better fight for boxing fans in terms of overall excitement. Both fighters are highly talented and very busy fighters with good power. Rosado is someone who’d already been exposed a number of times in losses to Alfredo Angulo, Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin and most recently Jermell Charlo.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Rosado likely would have crumbled under the pressure from Kirkland sooner rather than later. Kirkland is a good fighter, but a fight against Rosado wasn’t the greatest fight that could be made. A more interesting fight would have been Kirkland against Charlo, Erislandy Lara or Golovkin.

I believe the Kovalev vs. Hopkins fight is better off with the Abregu-Ali fight. It’s a far better fight for boxing fans looking for action than the Kirkland-Rosado fight, and it pits two fighters that are at the top of their games rather than with one of them sinking with his career in losing repeatedly to the top fighters.

If Kirkland can get the fight against Canelo in December, boxing fans will be the better for it. It’s a much more interesting fight than watching Canelo fighting 37-year-old Joshua Clottey.



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