Brian Rose battles Carson Jones this Saturday, February 14th

By Gavin Duthie - 02/11/2015 - Comments

rose4By Gav Duthie: If you can tear yourself away from the wife for 12 rounds on Saturday night there is an intriguing light middleweight match up taking place between outside contenders Brian Rose 26-2-1 (8) and Carson Jones 36-10-3 (26). Rose comes in off the back of a spirited performance against champion Demetrius Andrade where he was completely outclassed. Jones retired late last year only to make a u-turn one week later. Both fighters are having one last crack at the big time and Rose has already admitted he will retire if he loses. 

Carson Jones

I was disappointed when Jones decided to retire. I wrote a piece on it and predictably there wasn’t a huge amount of interest as he isn’t a huge name.  My feeling is though guys like him have a huge role in the sport as gatekeeper to the top level. Understandably he wants to be a world champion rather than a stepping stone. Jones has exposed and derailed many a promising career. There are too many boxers out there now with false padded records and we need guys like Jones to expose that. Take Tyron Brunson 19-0 (19) all in the 1st round at the time a world record. Jones knocked him out in 3 rounds. Then you have Olympic prodigy Silver medalist Ricardo Williams Jnr who was given $1 million to turn pro probably more than Jones has ever made. Jones knocked him out in 4 rounds. He even arguably gave Kell Brook a tougher fight than Shawn Porter did. His problem is his huge inconsistency and lack of commitment at times. Still at only 28 years of age he says he an easily expose Rose. 

Brian Rose

Brian ‘The Lion’ Rose has had a different but equally turbulent career. His career was nearly derailed after a boxing tragedy. During a domestic clash which Rose won by late stoppage his opponent Jason Rushton was later taken to hospital and placed in an induced coma. He survived but the ordeal took its toll on Rose. He lost his next fight to journeyman Max Maxwell in 6 rounds and admitted his head wasn’t in the fight. He got himself back on track beating Maxwell over 12 rounds in a rematch and going on to dominate the domestic scene. His best victories are stoppages over former world champions Vivian Harris and Joachim Alcine but he was massively out of his depth against Andrade. He has stated he wants to operate at world level so if he loses here he is done. He says he done the domestic scene and see’s no point in boxing if he will not be a world champion so the pressure is on. 

I am expecting a great fight between two fighters at a similar level where it s all or nothing. My prediction is Rose by close decision. 



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