After WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara pulled out of his scheduled May 2 showdown with former IBF champ Ishe Smith to take on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in July, Smith and his camp were sent scrambling to come up with a new opponent.
The search ended a few days ago when it was announced that Smith(25-6, 11 KOs) would be taking on journey man Ryan Davis at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas the night before the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Marcos Maidana card goes down up the road at the MGM Grand.
Choosing Davis (24-13-3, 9 KOs) didn’t sit well with fellow 154-pounder Gabriel Rosado, who was fairly vocal that he wanted to face Smith and took to his social media accounts to let the world know.
With Rosado constantly bashing Smith in the media and social media, Smith can’t see why he is so mad because he claims he was never in the discussion to be his next foe to begin with.
“There were rumors that they offered me Rosado and I turned it down, but that’s strictly a rumor,” Smith explained while attending media day at the Mayweather Boxing Club Tuesday. “They never offered me Rosado. They picked the opponent and asked me to OK the opponent they picked… and I said yeah and that was it.”
With Rosado attacking Smith with every chance he gets, Smith says he reminds him of a bitter ex-companion.
“He’s like a girlfriend that you break up with and they keep calling and keep texting, showing up to your house knocking on your door,” Smith said. “Dude, you didn’t win a fight all last year; you lost four fights in a row. So it’s like I am not really focused on you.
“If I go from fighting K-9 (Cornelius Bundrage) who is a champion, and I went to his backyard and took his title. Then I fought (Carlos) Molina, who nobody wanted to fight, one of the best junior middleweights in the division. Then I asked to fight (Erislandy) Lara, another guy who is considered one of the best, why the hell would I fight Rosado?”
Smith had some advice for Rosado to better the chances that he could potentially land a bout with him in the future, but didn’t seem too keen on the fight happening at any point.
“He needs to rebuild his career, regroup, get a few wins under his belt and that’s that man,” Smith stated. “I’m trying to fight the best in boxing and unfortunately for him he’s not one of those guys right now.”
