Garcia defeats Salido; Golovkin stops Rosado

By ESB - 01/20/2013 - Comments

YouTube video
By Bill Phanco: WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido (39-12-2, 27 KO’s) didn’t have it tonight as he was beaten by the young Mikey Garcia (31-0, 26 KO’s) by an 8 round technical decision at Madison Square Garden in New York. Garcia was able to knock Salido down four times in the first four rounds with superb power punching.

Unfortunately, the fight was stopped after the 8th round from a head-butt that broke Garcia’s nose. Mikey said he couldn’t breath through his nose. The crowd pretty much hated it with some boxing shouting at Mikey, wanting him to continue fighting. It did seem strange that Mikey didn’t want to keep fighting considering fighting with a broken nose seems to be a common thing. However, Mikey had built up a big lead by that point in the fight so he could afford to have it go to the scorecards.

The judges scored it 79-70, 79-69 and 79-69. Salido was fighting better from the 6th round on and getting to Mikey more and more at the time the fight was stopped. I don’t know if Salido would have won but he was definitely starting to land his shots from the 6th to the 8th. Mikey was stopping a lot of Salido’s attacks by shoving him while backing up. Since the referee allowed Garcia to do this, he was able to stop many of Salido’s attacks with this move.

It’s too bad Mikey couldn’t fight through the pain because it took away from the fight to have it stopped like this. Hopefully this doesn’t become a habit for Mikey to stop when he gets hurt after building a lead.

***

Golovkin stops Rosado

In the co-main event, WBA World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (25-0, 22 KO’s) stopped a badly bleeding and beaten Gabriel Rosado (21-6, 13 Ko’s) in the 7th round in a totally one-sided fight. The fight was stopped by Rosado’s corner, who threw in the towel as a result of their fighter bleeding badly from a cut over his left eye and nose. It looked like Rosado had a broken nose well, although that wasn’t the reason why it was stopped.

Rosado was taking huge shots in the 6th and 7th rounds and not fighting back. Rosado did very little fighting other than throwing jabs and sporadic power shots. It was mostly just Rosado running and trying not to get hit for seven rounds. It was very hard to watch the fight because Rosado was just getting tagged over and over again. Had he stopped and tried to fight Golovkin in a traditional one on one fight, I don’t think Rosado would have made it to the 3rd round.

Rosado just didn’t have the strength and the skills to stand and trade with Golovkin. He knew that the only way he could last in the fight was to run, and that’s the tactic he used. When you think about it, Rosado probably would have been better off if he had stood and traded with Golovkin and gone out in blaze of glory since he would have taken far less punishment that way and the beating would have been over much quicker.

The crowd booed loudly in the 1st round from Rosado’s constant running. It was ugly to watch and there no getting around the fact that Rosado was just looking to survive rather than win the fight.

In the 2nd round, Rosado was cut from a hard jab from Golovkin. It almost all Golovkin in the round until the final seconds when Rosado threw a flurry of shots, most of which missed or were blocked.

In the 3rd, Golovkin hurt Rosado with a big left to the head. Rosado started bleeding from the nose in this round, but other than that it was a copy of the second round with Rosado running and eating shots.

Rosado had a decent 4th round, as he landed a number of shots that had Golovkin covering up. However, Rosado paid for most of the punches he land because he was getting hit with hard counter shots in return.

The 4th round was pretty much the end of Rosado’s offense because he ran hard in the 5th, 6th and 7th and seldom threw punches. It just ugly running and I was wondering why the fight wasn’t being stopped because was no longer making any effort to win, not that he ever really was. It was just that one round, the 4th, where Rosado actually let his hands go.

In the 6th, Golovkin hurt Rosado with a right uppercut a the start of the round. Rosado immediately grabbed Golovkin in a clinch to survive, and Golovkin tagged him several times in the back of the head out of frustration. The referee Steve Smoger than gave a tipsy looking Rosado a time out to recover from the rabbit shots. After the action resumed, Golovkin continued to hit Rosado with jabs and power shots when he could catch up to him because Rosado continued with his running.

In the 7th, it was nothing but running from Rosado until the fight was stopped. By then he was covered with blood from his cut eye and bleeding nose.

***
Other boxing results on the card:

Juan Carlos Burgos D 12 Roman Martinez
Mikael Zewski TKO 4 Brandon Hoskins
Anthony Ferrante KO 10 Isa Akberbayev
Glen Tapia TKO 2 Ayi Bruce
Ronald Ellis UD 4 Steven Tyner
Felix Verdejo KO 1 Tomi Archambault