Coming into the bout admittedly not giving David Lemieux much respect, Gabriel Rosado quickly changed the way he thought of the Canadian native after feeling his power early in their bout Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Midway through Round 2, after a fairly successful opening round for Rosado, Lemieux caught Rosado with a vicious shot to his left eye, sending Rosado to the canvas to recover from the eye-swelling shot.
In a situation eerily similar to Chris Algieri’s bout with Ruslan Provodnikov in June at the same arena, where Provodnikov landed a shot that almost immediately closed Algieri’s eye in the first round of their bout, but went on to lose the fight, Lemieux made sure he didn’t start out strong and fade out late.
Lemieux (33-2, 31 KOs) kept the pressure on the rest of the way landing multiple power shots per round and despite Rosado (21-9, 13 KOs) displaying the tremendous heart that has made him a fan-favorite over the years. Rosado’s determination to not quit wasn’t enough and the bout was eventually stopped in Round 10 after the referee saw the Philadelphia native took one too many big shots.
There was attention being paid to see how Lemieux would handle the bout going to the latter rounds and Lemieux showed he has perfectly able to go deep into a fight and still be dominate.
“I responded to the test well, my preparation has been a lot different.,” Lemieux said . “I know he wanted to take me into deep waters but we have been practicing on explosiveness from the first part of the fight all the way to the end.”
Rosado gained respect for Leimieux in the fight and thought that things could of turned out differently if he could of jumped out to a more successful start.
“He’s a good fighter. In the second round he punched me in my eye and after it puffed up I couldn’t see anything. I kept seeing three of him. It’s just my luck,” Rosado said. “I know I should have started the fight better, if I had taken control earlier I know it would have been different. But I know he’s a good fighter and I take nothing away from him.”
After proving his power could last deep into a fight Lemieux was asked if he was interested in fighting fellow power hitter Gennady Golovkin, who had similar results against Rosado, where their bout was stopped in Round 7 due to a cut over Rosado’s eye, and the NABF middleweight champion expressed interest in the bout.
“I wanted to show everyone what I could do. He was better than I thought but I thought we had a great fight and I hope everyone enjoyed it,” Lemieux said. “I feel like I’m as good as anybody in the division and I’m willing to fight anybody. I want to win a world title.”
