Rosado Wins Big: One Big Compliment & One Big Criticism for NBC Sports Fight Night
Gabriel Rosado scored the biggest win of his career on Friday night in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, stopping Sechew Powell in the 9th round in the main event of the latest NBC Sports Fight Night. With the win, Rosado improves to 20 (12) – 5, and now has a career best six consecutive wins. Powell drops to 26-5 with the loss. The evening was of course a huge success for Rosado, but also for the fledgling fight series.
Powell was not the original opponent for Rosado, as he stepped in for Joel Julio, who pulled out of the fight. As a seasoned southpaw with world level experience to his credit, it seemed he was an even stiffer challenge for the tough and improving Rosado.
However, Rosado stuck to his guns and stayed patient in the fight. Powell used his skills to win some rounds and dictate a good portion of the fight, but Rosado’s aggression and power was evident, and he began making serious headway in the middle sessions of the scheduled 12-round contest.
After previously rocking Powell in an earlier round, Rosado dropped him in the 9th. Once he was up, he pounced on him, dropping him a second time as the referee called off the contest for a 9th round TKO win.
Rosado continues to get better and better, and he always makes for a fun, entertaining contest. With some confidence, a winning streak, a huge win and a good deal of positive notoriety after several consecutive televised appearances, the future is suddenly quite bright for the King out of Philly.
With James Kirkland out of the running for a September fight with Saul Canelo Alvarez, how fun would a Rosado vs. Kirkland fight be? You could schedule it for six rounds and rest easy knowing it wouldn’t go past that mark regardless.
In earlier action…
Ronald Cruz remained unbeaten with a unanimous decision victory over Prenice Brewer. Fighting in front of a raucous hometown crowd in Bethlehem, Cruz easily kept Brewer under control for much of the fight, which is exciting if not terribly eventful.
Brewer took a turn for the worse after the fight, however. Once he heard that commentator Freddie Roach scored the fight clearly for Cruz (which was accurate) Brewer went on a rant about Pacquiao taking steroids and now not looking good anymore and blah, blah, blah. Mr. Brewer, if you ever even sniff as much as one world title, maybe you can open your mouth on such a subject. And even then, it would be best not to. You’re out of your league there, fella.
One major compliment for the NBC Sports Fight Night franchise…
As mentioned, this was a successful, entertaining night of action for NBC Sports Fight Night and their partner, Main Events. Hopefully other promoters, and more importantly, television outlets, are taking notice.
Look at this. You have a guy in Gabriel Rosado that nobody outside of the most hardcore of boxinghead brethren would have known about before. One look at the record and he’d be labeled a club fighter, a no hoper.
Here he is, improving with every outing, notching the biggest win of his career, and suddenly with more recognition than the majority of active fighters in the game. Are you following?
By showcasing an exciting fighter multiple times in short order, the public has seen him, knows about him, are becoming fans of his, and are interested in watching him once again. In other words, they have been building a star from scratch, at low cost and low risk, and from seemingly out of nowhere.
That’s the power of a regular, televised showcase. And for the network, you can bet that Rosado will be a ratings-draw on future telecasts. And what’s not to like, as he thanks his mother, grandmother and 2-year-old daughter after the fight?
Hopefully this snowballs into something bigger in the near future.
One major criticism…
With all of that said, please, please, please, stop insulting the intelligence of your viewers by labeling these fights as title fights. It’s bad enough that there are four recognized world title belts in every weight class, and that number is multiplied with interim belts, super champions and lord knows what else.
But don’t feed me the utter garbage that a vacant intercontinental Americas XYZ interim half price, valid only on Tuesday nights at participating locations match is a “title fight” or is for a “championship”. You run the risk of completely ruining your credibility and trashing the awesome progress which I paid my compliments to above.
Don’t try to oversell or hype something up – the product can stand on its own.
