By Scott Gilfoid: The light hitting #1 WBO Brian Rose (25-1-1, 7 KO’s) is taking a huge step up in class this Saturday night when he faces unbeaten WBO light middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade (20-0, 13 KO’s) on the undercard of the Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Chris Algieri card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Andrade-Rose fight will be the co-feature bout on the card, which will be televised on HBO. Andrade, 6’1”, will be making his title defense of his WBO strap that he won last November with a 12 round split decision victory over Vanes Martiroyan.

“Everybody in boxing has pop,” the talented Andrade said. “I just have to go in and do what I do best – pick him apart. I’m a bad man! I’m going to whip his [expletive]. He’s getting knocked out. Fans are going to see why none of the top guys in my division want to fight me. I’m taking over!”

Rose, 6’0”, actually doesn’t have much power to speak of, as he’s more of a finesse boxer who moves around the ring, throwing jabs and trying to box his way to decisions. Even if Rose sat down on his shots, he’d barely get Andrade’s attention with his shots because the power just isn’t there.

Rose is coming off of a controversial 12 round split decision victory over Argentinian Javier Maciel last October in Sheffield, UK. I had Maciel winning that fight by 4 rounds, and that was me being kind to Rose in giving him 2 mercy rounds where he appeared to lose them. Maciel was nailing Rose with mammoth in every round of the fight, and that face that Rose was given the win by two of the judges was troubling.

Rose’s other important wins were against Joachim Alcine, Sam Webb, Vivian Harris, Price Arron, and Max Maxwell. There’s not any quality wins on Rose’s resume other than the one against Maciel, but like I said, that was arguably a loss rather than a win. Rose’s only career defeat was against the journeyman Maxwell in 2010 in getting stopped in the 6th round.

Andrade is short on experience as well with his best win coming against Martirosyan. His other important wins have come against Saul Duran and Freddy Hernandez.