(Photo Credit: Ed Mulholland/HBO) By Tim Fletcher: Former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (39-4, 22 KOs) will be fighting Gabriel Rosado (21-9, 13 KOs) this Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round fight on the undercard of the Bryant Jennings vs. Luis Ortiz fight on HBO from the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York.
This is a fight that neither guy can afford to lose at this point in their careers. Rosado isn’t old at 29, but with the way his career has been sinking in the last two years, he might as well be old. Rosado has lost 4 out of his last 5 fights since 2013, and he hasn’t won a fight since beating Charlie Whitaker in 2012.
A big part of the reason why Rosado keeps losing is he’s been playing the B-side as the opponent for more talented fighters like Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Jermell Charlo and David Lemieux. Rosado dodged a defeat in his fight against J’Leon Love in May 2013 due to Love testing positive for a banned substance.
“This fight means a new beginning,” Rosado said to ESPN.com. “It’s the second chapter of my career, and I believe it’s truly my time to shine. I know that Clottey is a defensive-minded fighter and will be looking to counter. But I believe that I have the advantage. I’m younger, faster, stronger, and I believe my ring IQ is better.”
Look who I ran into? @KingGabRosado and trainer Fernando Vargas. pic.twitter.com/Fzqp5Z4BK3
— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) December 17, 2015
If Rosado can’t shine against the 39-year-old Clottey, then I don’t think there’s any real possibility for him to shine against anyone else. Rosado has the size advantage, youth advantage and the power advantage in this fight. Rosado is accustomed to fighting bigger guys at 160, so this should be a welcome break for him to be fighting a junior middleweight in Clottey.
The 5’11 ½” Rosado will have a 3 1/2” height advantage over the 5’8” Clottey and that should help him. It didn’t help the 5’11” Anthony Mundine, who was beaten soundly by Clottey last year in April 2014. Rosado will need to bring some actual skills to the fight for him to defeat Clottey, because if he tries to brawl his way to a win, he might come up short like Mundine did.
Clottey’s career has kind of done downhill through inactivity in the last five years since his loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2010. Clottey got a big payday in that fight, and he’s only fought four times in the last five years since them. It’s too bad Clottey didn’t stay active in the last five years because he might have accomplished a lot with his career.
It’s easy to picture him fighting four to five times more fights than he did if he had stayed busy. If Clottey had fought that many times, he likely would have won a belt or two and made a lot more money.
“I know Gabe is very tough and always comes to fight so I expect a hard fight from him. I just will need to stay focused and I do what I need to in order to win,” Clottey said to ESPN.com. “I want to be a world champion again, and I believe my experience will help me be one again and know I can do that by winning this fight.”
It’s going to be very difficult for Clottey to win a world title at this point in his career, because he’ll need to beat the likes of Jermall Charlo, Erislandy Lara, Jermell or Liam Smith. I think Clottey is too small to beat Lara or the Charlo brothers. He might be able to beat Liam Smith if he could get ranked high enough to fight him.
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