Video: Rosado angry, wants Murray rematch

By Boxing News - 04/23/2017 - Comments

Image: Video: Rosado angry, wants Murray rematch

By Scott Gilfoid: Gabriel Rosado (23-11, 13 KOs) was absolutely furious last Saturday night at finding himself on the receiving end of a 12 round majority decision loss to Martin Murray (35-4-1, 16 KOs) in their middleweight fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Rosado thought he should have gotten the win, and he let the boxing media know about it afterwards. Rosado says he wants a rematch with the 34-year-old Murray.

Unfortunately for Rosado, it does not look like a rematch is in the future for him, as Murray’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he wants to match him against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders next in July. Hearn isn’t sure if he can make the Saunders-Murray fight, however, because Saunders is supposed to be defending his World Boxing Organization title against his #1 WBO mandatory challenger Avtandil Khurtsidze next on July 8 in London. The WBO has already ordered Saunders to fight back to back mandatory defenses. The only way around that for Saunders is if he fights a unification match. Murray isn’t a champion, so he’s not going to be able to get a title shot against Saunders.

Murray won last night by the scores 119-109, 114-114, and 116-112. Rosado fought well enough to deserve a close win or a draw. I scored it in Rosado’s favor by one round for his cleaner shots. Murray was landing a lot of weak punches that seemed more like the shoeshine variety of punches. The judge that scored the fight 11 rounds to 1 for Murray seemed way off track for what was happening inside the ring. That score was scary bad.

“Just so everyone knows, I don’t select the judges,” said Hearn to IFL TV. “I didn’t have a say in the judges. It’s bad for us. People see that and say, ‘If you fight in England, you get robbed.’ The English judge I believe scored it a draw. The judge was an international judge. How can you score it 119-109? I definitely gave Rosado the last 2 rounds and he won other rounds in the fight as well. I don’t think he won the fight in my opinion. The genuine feeling around ringside was Martin won it. My opinion is if Rosado had fought the middle rounds like he did in the last 2 rounds, he would have won the fight. But I do agree that 119-109 is an absolute disgrace. It was a decent fight. It wasn’t the fight of the year as I hoped it would be but I can’t control that,” said Hearn.

Since Murray isn’t going to be getting a title shot against Saunders anytime soon if ever, Hearn might as well put him in with Rosado in a rematch, because it’s not as if he’s got anything else to do. If Hearn throws Murray in with someone good like Daniel Jacobs or Jermall Charlo, he’ll likely get beaten to a pulp by those guys. There are levels to the middleweight division, and I don’t think Murray is even close to the level of those guys. Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin isn’t fight to give Murray another title shot, because he already knocked him out in 11 rounds in 2015 in a one-sided fight. Fighting him again one be absolutely pointless. I don’t think a fight like that would draw any interest from the U.S boxing fans. As such, Hearn might as well keep Murray busy by having him clear up the controversy surrounding his victory over Rosado.

“I’d like him to fight Billy Joe Saunders,” said Hearn about Murray. “If he didn’t win tonight, that would be it. He’s still in there. What’s next? I don’t quite know.”

Hearn shouldn’t kid himself about him hoping for a fight between Saunders and Murray. It’s not going to happen. You’re supposed to earn a title shot. Murray’s win over a second tier fighter in Rosado is not nearly enough for him to be given a world title fight in my opinion. Rosado is a good fighter, but he’s not ranked in the top 15 at middleweight at this time, and he was coming off of a 12 round decision loss to Willie Monroe Jr. from last September.

If Hearn wants Murray to fight for a world title, then he should put him in with Monroe Jr., Charlo or Jacobs and see if he can earn the fight the old fashioned way by beating someone ranked. I could see Murray vs. Monroe Jr. being a winnable fight for Murray if he can improve his painfully slow hand speed. But then again, if we had scoring like we did last night, Murray might not need for him to beat Monroe. I still think it would be a tough fight for Murray to try and go to war against Monroe, because he doesn’t have the power to give him problems. You’ve got to have power to beat Monroe.

“119-109 that was an absolute disgrace.” said Tony Bellew to IFL TV. “I had Martin Murray by 1 round, but a lot of the crowd had Rosado winning. I had Martin by one point, but I thought he lost the last 2 rounds. I expected a war, but both guys got in there tonight and didn’t want a war,” said Bellew.

“I thought I out-boxed him,” said Rosado to IFL TV about Murray. “Every time I hit him to the body, he held on. He showed that he was hurt when I hit him. He hit me with 4 low blows, blatant low blows. No point deductions. He held on every time he was hurt. I was the guy pressing the fight. I told Eddie I won the fight and I want a rematch. I guess Martin didn’t like that and he got in my face when the fight was finished. I think I won the fight. I felt more fresh. Even if I got the point deduction and dropped him, I still would have lost the fight by how widely the scorecards were. 119-109, that was ridiculous. Look at the crowd. I was in his hometown, and the crowd was silent. They were seeing their guy get out-boxed. They were seeing their guy get out-hustled. I did enough to win the fight, especially with the way I closed the fight. Let’s say the fight was close going into the championship rounds, I still closed it. If he did ever win a round, he never clearly won a round. If he ever did win a round, it was a close round. I won the fight. This was frustrating man. There was a part in the fight where I thought he was clearly scared. I thought he was clearly scared. When I hit him in the body, he held. When I let my hands go, he didn’t let his hands go. If he did, it was scared. It was like, ‘get off me,’ type shots. It wasn’t like he was setting something up. I pressed the action. When you’re hitting someone, you should be winning the fight. I thought I hurt him in a couple of rounds. What was he doing? He was trying [expletive] body shots. He had nothing in those body shots. He wasn’t trying anything effective. It was a little shoeshine to the body,” said Rosado.

In looking at what Rosado did wrong last night, I think he made a BIG mistake by not going to war with Murray from the first round. Rosado should have known going into the fight that the only way he was going to beat Murray is by turning the fight into a 12 round war. Rosado waited until the last 3 rounds of the fight before he started brawling all out. By waiting to that point, Rosado played into Murray’s hands by boxing him instead of using the skills that had got him to this point in his career.

YouTube video