Former 2-time middleweight world title challenger Gabriel Rosado (23-11, 13 KOs) weighed at 159.8 pounds on Wednesday for his scheduled 10 round fight against Glen Tapia (23-4, 15 KOs) on Thursday night on ESPN2 from the Monte Carlos Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tapia weighed in at 161 lbs. Both fighters looked good. Rosado, 31, looked like of thin at the weight, which suggests that he’s someone that might be better off fighting at super middleweight at this point in his 11-year pro career.
Rosado should win this fight if he goes after Tapia and slugs with him. It depends on what kind of mood Rosado is in for the fight. Sometimes Rosado can look very good in his fights when he’s letting his hands go and being busy. We didn’t see that in Rosado’s loss to Willie Monroe Jr. last year. He let Monroe get the better of him. Rosado was a lot better in his last fight against Martin Murray.
Rosado showed a lot of heart, and displayed good boxing skills to give Murray a lot of problems. It’s fights like that which shows the potential that Rosado has. When Rosado is fighting aggressively and attacking his opponents, he’s a different animal. In Rosado’s 7th round TKO loss to middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in 2013, he fought timidly in the first 4 rounds of the fight in staying on the move, and trying not to get hit by GGG.
In the 5th, Rosado went after Golovkin and landed some hard punches that bruised GGG’s eyes. However, in round 6, Golovkin immediately hurt Rosado with a big uppercut, and that caused him to spend the remainder of the round running from GGG. Rosado continued to run from GGG until the fight was halted in round 7.
Rosado is a lot better fighter than his record would have you believe. He’s only lost to good fighters during his career.
Tapia, 27, is coming into the fight on Thursday having lost recently to Jason Quigley, David Lemieux and Michel Soro. The defeats to Lemieux and Soro were both 4th round knockout losses. Tapia went the full 10 rounds in losing to Quigley by a unanimous decision on March 23 of this year. The unwelcome news about Tapia’s loss to Quigley is it was a one-sided affair with him losing by the scores 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92.
This is a must win situation for both fighters at this stage of their careers. Rosado has lost his last 2 fights to Martin Murray and Willie Monroe Jr. The defeat to Murray was a very controversial one for Rosado, as he fought more than well enough to deserve the ‘W’ in the fight, but the judges saw it differently in scoring it 119-109, 116-112 for Murray, and 114-114 for Rosado. The fight took place at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Murray was fighting in his hometown of Liverpool, and he had the boxing fans on his side. Boxing News 24 scored it as clear 116-112 win for Rosado.
It was a tough way for Rosado to lose, as he fought well enough to deserve the win in that fight. Rosado was furious after the fight, storming around and letting the boxing fans know how angry he was, especially about the one score of 119-109 in favor of Murray. The 2 judges that had Murray winning were from Poland, whereas the judge that scored it a draw at 114-114 was from the UK. The UK judge did a good job, but obviously the other 2 judges seemed to be watching another fight.
Rosado’s defeat before the Murray fight was a 12-round decision loss to Willie Monroe Jr. on September 17 last year. There was no controversy about that loss. Rosado didn’t do enough to get the victory over Monroe Jr. Rosado got outworked and out-punched by Monroe Jr. That was a substandard performance by Rosado, as he’s a better fighter than that. He looked like he wasn’t ready to go to war with Monroe Jr. the way he needed to for him to get the victory.
Rosado’s 2 consecutive losses halted a 2-fight winning streak that he had going for him after beating Joshua Clottey and Antonio Gutierrez. Those 2 wins came after Rosado had been beaten in 3 straight fights by David Lemieux, Jermell Charlo and Peter Quillin. Those are very good fighters, and there’s no shame for Rosado to have lost to those guys.
The loser of the Rosado vs. Tapia fight will be heading towards journeyman status. You can argue that both fighters already are journeyman at this point. They’re both good fighters, but unable to get past a certain type of fighter. Tapia is losing to guys now that aren’t necessarily world championship level fighters in Quigley, Soro and James Kirkland. Those are fighters that Tapia would have needed to be for him to be considered a world class fighter. Unfortunately, they all exposed him.
If Rosado loses this fight, it’s hard to say where he should go. If he can’t beat Tapia, then it might be time for him to retire.