(Photo Credit: Alex Menendez – HoganPhotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: Former world title challenger Gabriel Rosado (22-9, 13 KOs) believes he’ll be getting a fight against WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs). Rosado, 29, believes that he’ll either be facing Canelo in his next fight in May 2016 or at some point in the future, because both fighters share the same promoters at Golden Boy Promotions.
Rosado sees that as something that increases the chances for a Canelo-Rosado fight. He also thinks the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico rivalry is something that will interest Golden Boy in making the fight between them.
“It’s whatever Golden Boy wants to do,” Rosado said to Thaboxingvoice. “If they want to make the Canelo fight, we can do that. If not, we can keep growing. We’ll eventually fight. We’re signed to the same promoters. He’s young. I’m young. It’s Mexican-Puerto Rico. You’ve got that rivalry going on. It would be a good fight. I think with Canelo, he’s going to exchange. It would give me opportunities to land bigger shots,” Rosado said.
Rosado has been talking up a fight against Canelo ever since he defeated 38-year-old junior middleweight Joshua Clottey (39-5, 22 KOs) on December 19th in a Golden Boy card at the Turning Stone in Verona, New York. Rosado beat Clottey by a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores of 97-93, 97-93, and 96-94. It was Rosado’s first win since 2012.
Rosado would make for an interesting opponent for Canelo, but the one problem that Golden Boy and HBO might have with picking Rosado for the fight is that it would be a tough sell to the boxing public. Canelo wants his next fight to be on HBO PPV. How do you sell a Canelo-Rosado fight to boxing fans when Rosado having won only once since 2012? Asking fans to purchase a mismatch like that might result in few fans purchasing the fight.
Rosado has losses to Gennady Golovkin, David Lemieux, Peter Quillin and Jermell Charlo in the last two years. Rosado would have had another loss on his resume in his fight against J’Leon Love in May 2013, but that fight result was turned to a no contest due to Love testing positive for a banned substance.
If Canelo is serious about wanting to fight next on HBO PPV in May, then he needs to select someone that his fans will be willing to pay to see him fight. David Lemieux’s name is one name that has been mentioned as a possible opponent for the 25-year-old Canelo for his fight on May 7th on Cinco de Mayo, but Lemieux was just beaten by Gennady Golovkin last October by an 8th round knockout.
The only thing positive about Lemieux being selected for Canelo is it would give boxing fans a chance to see the difference between how he handles the same fighter that Golovkin just stopped. Aside from that, Canelo would be better off taking on someone unbeaten with a decent name like one of the Charlo brothers or Demetrius Andrade.
Canelo almost has to pool from the junior middleweight or welterweight divisions if he wants to find someone popular enough for a PPV fight. WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley would be a popular enough opponent for Canelo to fight on PPV.
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