GABE ROSADO: WORN-OUT BAIT DOG
It was announced yesterday by Golden Boy Promotions that Zurdo Ramirez will be fighting 26-16-1 Gabe Rosado. This is a get-back-right fight from his one-sided loss to Dmitry Bivol. The easy opponent after a loss move by promoters is a growing occurrence in boxing and has been deemed widely acceptable by boxing’s shrinking fanbase. BUT it is WHO “Zurdo” Ramirez will be getting his career back on track which is the issue in this case.
Gabe Rosado is a vet with a warrior’s heart. None of that should be questioned. But he is now 5-11-1
with a no-contest in his last 18 fights. At what point do boxing’s power brokers collectively step in and
say enough is enough with the Gabe Rosado B side experiment?
At what point does Gabe Rosado’s team step in and wave the white flag by protecting him from himself?
When we talk about fighter safety in boxing we view it through the prism of what’s best for A-side fighters. This is proven with wide odds fights week in and week out. Seldom do we concern ourselves with what’s best for the dude lined up to get thrown in over his head, in short, the other corner. These fighters haven’t been deemed valuable enough by boxing’s power brokers to wrap in a bubble and not emotionally invested enough by boxing fans to virtue signal about on social media.
The other issue with this is the redundancy of it. Hollywood is littered with bad sequels and a pandemic of remakes. No creativity. How many bad Kevin Hart comedies do we need to be subjected to? Should a sequel to Daddy Day Care have been greenlit? As is the case in boxing. Too many rematches of matchups we didn’t need to see again and too many human bait dogs are being rolled out semi-annually to be sacrificed at the altar of pampered A-side fighters
.
If Zurdo Ramirez needs to get back on track against easier opposition let’s find a fresher version of Gabe Rosado. The “Bek the Bully” knockout was the exception here, not the rule. Boxing needs fresh faces, this is also the case with our underdogs.
Give a younger fighter a shot at pulling off a huge upset. Give boxing fans a break from the usual and give Gabe Rosado a break from developing more scar tissue.
