Sports360AZ
Middleweight boxer “King” Gabe Rosado is from the rough streets of Philadelphia. He is a shining example of what you can do if you stay positive and put your mind toward something you have a passion for.
For Rosado, it was boxing.
Rosado hasn’t quite made it to the top, but he’s definitely on the road there. His next stop will be perhaps the biggest fight of his career on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nev.
Rosado will face undefeated middleweight J’Leon Love as part of the undercard to the Floyd Mayweather/Robert Guerrero fight that night.
Rosado and Love will be fighting for the vacant NABF middleweight title.
Phoenix has been very kind to Rosado and his trainer Billy Briscoe. The last time they were here to continue their training for a fight, they went out and beat Charles Whittaker in the IBF Light Middleweight Title Eliminator.
Upon their arrival in the Valley, Rosado weighed in at 178 pounds, which was quite surprising to him. He had never weighed that much in his career, but he said he’d been constantly working out since his last fight with Gennady Golovkin back in January, so he just naturally bulked up to that weight, a solid weight.
“I was telling Billy, ‘Yo, I never been this big Bill, and I’m solid,'” Rosado said. “And he’s like ‘Yo, you a middleweight champ.'”
The weight has come off since Rosado and Briscoe got to Phoenix, and now they’re in Las Vegas, their final destination, and they’re ready for Love on Saturday night and whatever comes in the future.
“My goal is to be a world champion,” Rosado said. “I said, ‘One day I’ll be on HBO and I’ll be on Showtime,’ and that was before I even walked in the gym, that’s just my mentality, that’s how I felt.”
“To be in this situation, [it’s not] a surprise, because I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing, so it feels like it’s meant to be,” Rosado said.
Just being around this young man, you can tell he has all the confidence in the world in himself. He believes there’s nothing he can’t accomplish, and there’s no one that he can’t beat once he steps inside a ring.
Rosado will duck no one on his way to the mountaintop, starting with Love.
“I want to fight whoever has the title,” Rosado said. “I’m not gonna hand pick no champion. Whoever has the title between 154 [pounds] and 160 [pounds].”
Briscoe paid Rosado the ultimate compliment when saying the only way you can beat his fighter is to “kill him,” because he’ll never give in, no matter what the circumstance.
For instance, in his last fight with Golovkin, Rosado was cut over his left eye and was bleeding from his nose, but he didn’t let that stop him. He pleaded with the referee to continue to fight, even though he couldn’t really see Golovkin because of all the blood covering his face.
Rosado says there’s no way he’ll bow down to any man…ever.
“I can’t surrender to another man,” Rosado said. “I just told myself, ‘This man’s not gonna drop me, it’s not happening.'”
“It’s just my mentality,” Rosado said. “I get it from my parents, they got thick skin, and where I come from, Philly, you can’t be weak, so it’s just my upbringing.”
“He’s gonna know,” Rosado said when talking about what Love has to look forward to at the MGM Grand on Saturday. “He’s gonna know, it’s gonna be a problem.”
