By Ian S Palmer
Glen Tapia of Passaic, New Jersey will be taking on Gabriel Rosado of Philadelphia at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada this Thursday, October 19th. The 10-round middleweight bout can be seen live on ESPN 2 and ESPN Deportes in the U.S. Tapia last fought in March when he lost a 10-round unanimous decision to Jason Quigley. Rosado’s last outing was a 12-round majority decision loss to Martin Murray in April. Tapia has lost three fights in a row and Rosado has dropped his last two.
Tapia enters the fight at 23-4 along with 15 Kos, but while he’s just 27 years old he’s been struggling lately with three consecutive defeats and four losses in his past seven bouts and three of them coming by stoppage. Tapia stands 5-feet-11-inches and has a wingspan of 73 inches. He has 112 rounds under his belt since turning pro in 2008 and his current knockout ratio stands at a respectable 56 per cent. He has decent power, but his chin is definitely a question mark right now.
His three stoppage losses were to Michel Soro in May of 2015, to James Kirkland in six rounds in December, 2013 and to David Lemieux in four rounds in May, 2016. Tapia’s fan friendly as his last five wins have been by stoppage eight of his last nine bouts have ended before the final bell. Tapia’s been in his share of wars and could be somewhat shot at this point because of it. He needs to keep his hands up defensively and has to keep Rosado on the back foot by pressuring him at all times.
Tapia also needs to keep the fight in the centre of the ring and stay off of the ropes. He’s has fallen short when he’s stepped up in class as most of his wins have been against Grade B opponents. However, Rosado is a bit better than Grade B even though he’s not an elite boxer at this point in his career. Rosado definitely has more experience against tougher opponents and that doesn’t really bode top well for Tapia heading into the fight.
The veteran Gabriel Rosado is 31 years old and carries a record of 23-11 along with 13 Kos. Rosado is just shy of 6-feet tall and has a 71.5-inch reach, so he has a slight height advantage and a 1.5-inch reach disadvantage. He has quite a bit of experience as Rosado turned pro in 2006 and has 255 rounds under his belt since then. However, he’s fought most of his pro bouts at the lower weight level of junior middleweight.
Rosado isn’t really a powerful puncher as he has a knockout ratio of just 37 per cent and even though he’s been stopped four times, he has a pretty solid chin. He’s taken on the likes of world middleweight champions Peter Quillin and Gennady Golovkin with Quillin stopping him in the 10th round on cuts and Golovkin halting him in seven. He also dropped a split-decision against J’Leon Love, but that bout was changed to a no-contest after Love failed a drug test.
Rosado has also been beaten by Alfredo Angulo by second-round TKO, by Derek Ennis by 10-round majority decision, by Fernando Guerrero by eight-round unanimous decision, by Joshua Onyango by eight-round unanimous decision, by Chris Gray by a six-round unanimous decision, by Jermell Charlo by 10-round unanimous decision and by David Lemieux by 10th-round stoppage. Rosado’s lost six of his last eight seven bouts.
However, he’s taken on some tough customers along the way and was competitive against just about all of them. Rosado’s also beaten some good boxers such as Sechew Powell, Jesus Soto-Karass, Saul Roman, and Kassim Ouma. However, he has to earn a victory here against Tapia to get his career back on the right track. He definitely has the edge in experience over Tapia and that could be the difference in this fight.
Prediction…
Rosado is a tough customer, but he doesn’t have much power and Tapia will be relieved about that since his chin has betrayed him lately. This is actually a really good matchup as both boxers have been struggling and need a win to boost their confidence. This should be an entertaining fight, but I’ll have to give the edge to Rosado due to his stronger chin and edge in experience.
