Boxing: ‘This Will Be GGG’s Best Performance,’ Gabriel Rosado Foresees

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Gabriel Rosado is training in California, but he plans to make the trip cross country to New York this weekend. His grand scheme is to witness the HBO pay-per-view middleweight showdown between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux in person on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Though in reality, the gutsy Philadelphia slugger who succeeds more on heart and passion than talent doesn’t really have to see it live.

Rosado knows what it’s like to have been hit by both men and still be conscious enough to talk about it. Having been in the ring with the likes of Peter Quillin, Jermell Charlo, Golovkin and most recently Lemieux, back in December 2014, Rosado (21-9, 13 KOs) has a special, keen insight on what “GGG” (33-0, 30 KOs) and Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) can do.

HBO has a powerful reach and strong marketing branch. Since Floyd Mayweather’s retirement, the cable giant is hitching its wagon to Golovkin as the next greatest thing in boxing. HBO is attempting to sell this fight as “GGG’s coming-out party” with a test. It may not be at all, according to Rosado, who has a simple explanation why.

“The reality of it is this will be GGG’s best performance,” Rosado said. “With his fight with Willie Monroe, Golovkin was just playing around. He could have ended that fight a lot sooner than he did. I think he wanted to give the fans a show. With a guy like Lemieux, who can end the fight with one punch, GGG won’t play. If he can end the fight in the first round, he will. He wants to take care of business. Both of these guys have a good hook, but GGG wants to make a point. This is his first PPV. He wants to show people who haven’t seen him before who he is.

“It will be a great fight, for however long it lasts,” he added. “It’s a fight that can go either way because of the punching power these guys have. GGG is not a robot. A lot of guys are intimidated by him, and it’s why they get hurt easily. They’re afraid. If Lemieux tries to box him and do things that he normally doesn’t do, that’s when he’s going to get hurt, [by] giving GGG too much respect. Lemieux has to go all out. GGG knows that.”

Against Golovkin, Rosado was stopped on cuts at 2:46 of the seventh round, where his then-trainer, Billy Briscoe, threw in the towel on Jan. 19, 2013. “GGG” never sent Rosado to the canvas, but he did impose his power. Rosado was venturing north of 154 pounds for the first time in seven years, since the beginning of his career. It was a chance he was willing to take for the opportunity to fight Golovkin. Rosado brought up an interesting theory to combat “GGG,” borrowing a page from Evander Holyfield when he fought Mike Tyson the first time: Get inside and tie him up. Tyson had short, stubby arms for a heavyweight, and when he was unable to unfurl those arms, his power was negated.

“GGG” is a rangy 5-foot-10½, tall by middleweight standards, and a full inch larger than Lemieux, though both have a 70-inch reach.

“GGG and Lemieux are the hardest punching middleweights in the division right now, but I give the edge to GGG,” Rosado said. “He’s a sounder, more technical fighter. Lemieux is a guy that just comes in and he’s trying to knock you out with every shot. GGG knows how to switch up his speed and his power and then hit you with the deadly shot. It’s why I give the edge to GGG.

“When I fought GGG, it was a premature move on my part,” he continued. “I was a junior middleweight coming up. He had a big size advantage against me. Against GGG, I would fight him totally different now, but at the time, I tried to box him. I wanted to get him in exchanges and fire short shots. The reason why Golovkin didn’t knock me out is because a lot of guys are scared of Golovkin. I can tell you Lemieux is not intimidated by him. A guy like GGG, you definitely have to back up. I don’t think he fights well on the inside. Whenever I got the better of exchanges, [it] was because I was backing him up.

“Unfortunately, I received three cuts over my left eye by the second round,” Rosado added. “But I learned that with GGG you have to smother his shots, because his power comes from distance, when he’s able to fully extend his arms. He’s not really a good inside fighter; he likes to knock guys out with a long left hook or a straight right hand. You can’t let him extend. The way I would fight him today is attack him.”

Against Lemieux, Rosado suffered a broken orbital bone in his left eye and torn pupil in the third round of their fight on Dec. 6, 2014, injuries that had sidelined him for months. Still, the fight continued for seven more rounds -- a testament to Rosado’s grit.

“Lemieux is an all-or-nothing guy,” Rosado said. “He is someone I honestly thought I could have done better against, if I didn’t get the broken orbital bone. I was literally blind in that fight. Every time he hit me in the left eye, it felt like my eye was going to pop out. It was very painful. It’s the worst injury I ever suffered. I didn’t know what was going on. When I went down [in the third], it wasn’t because he hurt me. It was because I lost my sight and felt something was wrong. Lemieux throws shots at one speed; every shot is hard. At this level, you can’t fight like that. GGG will come at you, and his boxing IQ is higher than Lemieux’s. With GGG, he was just a better fighter than me. With Lemieux, my injury made the difference. After my eye began swelling, I remember I got desperate. In the fourth round, I was backing him up and he was getting hurt. I just couldn’t keep that pace up.

“I can’t really say who the harder puncher is. Both punch hard. Put a gun to my head, I would say GGG has the advantage, because he’ll switch the power,” he added. “With Lemieux, knowing everything is hard, you can time his shots and brace yourself. You can sustain his shots better because you don’t have to adjust. With GGG, he can throw the 1-2, 1-2-3 and then the fourth shot is the hardest shot. That’s the shot that gets you hurt. GGG is the smarter puncher. Everything is distance with GGG. Any middleweight can punch; it’s the shot that you don’t feel that hurts you the most.”

Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.