Anatomy of bad blood between Gabriel Rosado and Daniel Jacobs

Gabriel Rosado talks to FanSided ahead of his super middleweight bout with former world champion Daniel Jacobs. He details the nature of their bad blood.

Gabriel Rosado has the mentality of an old school boxer. He’s willing to take on all comers and always feels like he’s going to win. Rosado’s record isn’t the cleanest, but he always shows up to fight. Against Daniel Jacobs, there’s even more of an incentive to win.

Rosado (25-12-1, 14 KOs) and former two-time middleweight champion Jacobs (36-3, 30 KOs) meet in a super middleweight bout on Friday, Nov. 27. A little less than a year before their upcoming contest, Rosado and Jacobs exchanged heated words in a scenario that almost threw them into the ring together.

In December of 2019, Rosado and Jacobs were fighting in separate matchups on the same card. Rosado was slated to fight Humberto Gutierrez Ochoa, and Jacobs was in the main event against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Chavez badly missed weight by almost five pounds. Jacobs had a decision to make. He could fight Chavez as planned and absorb part of his purse or elect to fight Rosado as a substitute. Jacobs continued as planned with Chavez. Rosado called him out for not fighting him.

“I pretty much told him ‘yeah, you took the easy route,” Rosado recalled to FanSided. “‘You decided to fight Chavez rather than fight me.’ I guess he didn’t like that, so now we’re fighting in November.”

They continued to trade words and personal insults. Jacobs retaliated by criticizing Rosado’s record, and the two had to be separated. It was a typical scene between boxers who don’t like each other. However, it wasn’t the first time Rosado and Jacobs had something to say to one another.

During fight week for the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennadiy Golovkin rematch in 2018, Rosado claims that he and Jacobs bumped into each other at a hotel.

“I know our first confrontation was at the hotel lobby at the Cosmopolitan,” recounted Rosado. “I think it was the Canelo, GGG rematch. We had some words at the lobby. I think it’s been two years now where we’ve just been kind of getting at each other.”

Some fleeting words planted the seed of disdain, which is why this fight has more of an edge than most. Fighters often try to sell fights with pre-fight drama, but during the age of COVID, there really aren’t many tickets to sell. If you have a DAZN subscription, you can watch the fight.

To hear Rosado describe their contentious attitudes towards one another, personal feelings have little to do with it, at least on his end. Hearing Rosado speak about Jacobs, the word that comes to mind is “resentment.”

Gabriel Rosado knows what it’s like to lose, but he feels he needs a win against Daniel Jacobs and that Freddie Roach will help get him there

“With Danny, it’s never that I don’t personally like Danny,” insisted Rosado. “I feel that Danny’s just a guy where he had a different route than me. He’s one of those guys that had an easier route, which is cool. I guess I tell him that, and he doesn’t like it. I told him, ‘If you took my route, we probably wouldn’t even hear of you.’ He didn’t like that.”

With all due respect, Jacobs’s path has been far from easy. He was knocked out in his first title shot against Dmitry Pirog in 2010 and was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2011. Jacobs was in a battle for his life against cancer and won. He won his first major title in 2014 by stopping Jarrod Fletcher.

Jacobs has two decision losses on his record coming against Golovkin and Alvarez, the later widely recognized as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

Rosado has also faced stiff competition. He may be right that his list of opponents is collectively better than Jacobs, but his performances lacked the polish and dominance that Jacobs has shown throughout his career.

Rosado and Jacobs share several common opponents, including Golovkin, Maciej Sulecki, Luis Arias, and Peter Quillin. Both lost to Golovkin, although Rosado was stopped in round 7, where Jacobs went the distance.

Jacobs defeated Sulecki and Arias by decision and knocked out Quillin in round 1. Rosado fought Arias to a draw, and he dropped a decision to Sulecki two fights ago. Quillin defeated Rosado by TKO.

Jacobs has faired far better amongst their common foes, but Rosado insists that Jacobs doesn’t know what’s in store for him on Nov. 27. He’s now working with trainer Freddie Roach who has a way of renewing veterans’ careers as he did with Miguel Cotto during their time together. Rosado feels a boost in his abilities under Roach’s guidance.

“It gives me a lot of confidence because he’s strictly business,” said Rosado. “When I get into the gym, everything is set. It’s professional. It gives me a better sense going into a fight knowing you have a coach that’s all in with you.”

As Rosado sharpens his skills and IQ with Roach, he’s still a threat to Jacobs because of his enduring toughness. He’s used to being cut in fights and carried on to the seventh round against Golovkin with severe cuts around his eye before his corner threw in the towel.

He went 10 rounds with David Lemieux in 2014 even though he suffered a detached retina in round 5.

“I had no idea what was going on,” said Rosado about the Lemieux fight. “I lost my vision. I thought maybe it would come back. Maybe something is in my eye. I didn’t know what was going on. I was just totally blind in that fight. I fought on to the 10th round with a detached retina, which is crazy.”

Rosado’s grit and determination mixed with heart pushed him on even when most would have fallen. Those characteristics make up his identity as a fighter. Rosado has numerous losses on his record, but people watch his fights because they know he’ll mix it up and give it all he’s got. Nothing has changed there, but against Jacobs, Rosado thinks he has found a winning combination and that Jacobs is in for a rude awakening.

“I think with me, for him [Jacobs] to try and figure me out is going to be funny because you can watch certain fights where I’m on my game and I look great, and there’s certain fights where I’m off,” said Rosado. “I think Danny took this fight thinking Gabe’s done. It’s going to be a different kind of fighter going into this fight.”

You can watch Daniel Jacobs vs. Gabriel Rosado on Friday, Nov. 27, exclusively on DAZN. Coverage begins at 8 p.m. ET.