Rosado up for the challenge of taking on Golovkin

In competitive athletics, much is always uncertainty. But there is one thing that absolutely can be presumed as true.

North Philadelphia's "King" Gabriel Rosado, whose hoops experience was mostly limited to neighborhood pickup games, was not destined to make it in the NBA.

Still, fondness of basketball nearly ended Rosado's boxing career before it had a chance to begin. As he prepared for the biggest bout of that career last week at the Harrowgate Boxing Club in Port Richmond, Rosado (21-5, 13 KOs), who challenges WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (24-0, 21 KOs) on Saturday night as part of an HBO-televised tripleheader in New York's Madison Square Garden, reflected on that curious turn of events 8 years ago.

"I walked in the gym [the Rivera Recreation Center] and the man in charge told me I was too old to start boxing," Rosado, then 18, said of his initially rebuffed attempt to check out a sport that had always interested him. "I had a basketball under my arm and he told me I should keep working on my jump shot, or something like that. So I turned around and walked out."

Fortunately for Rosado, trainer Billy Briscoe was standing nearby, instructing someone else, and he had a different mindset than the person who had just turned Rosado away. Most of what Briscoe knows about boxing he learned from the late, great Philly trainer Wesley Mouzon. He helped guide an ex-convict with no amateur boxing experience, Dwight Muhammad Qawi, to world light-heavyweight and cruiserweight championships. Like Mouzon, Briscoe believes that all those who want to become a fighter at least should be afforded the opportunity to find out whether fulfillment of their pugilistic dreams is at least somewhat feasible.

"Anyone who wants to try ought to be given the chance," said Briscoe, who chased down Rosado on the street and told him to come back the next day. "But being given the chance and sticking with it are two different things. Boxing has a way of weeding out the wannabes.

"I have what I call the 2-week and the 6-month rules. I put every beginner through intense conditioning drills for 2 weeks. A good fighter in great shape often will beat a great fighter who's not in good shape. But when you run guys through those drills, some are going to say, 'Uh-uh, this is not for me,' and they quit.

"Some guys make it through all the drills for up to 6 months, doing whatever you ask them to do. Then you put them in sparring, they get cracked, and they walk away, too."

Rosado showed up the next day, as promised, and he persevered through whatever forms of torture Briscoe presented.

"Gaby was very raw, but I could see he had that fighter's mentality," Briscoe said. "He was strong, he could punch and he believed in himself."

Rosado logged 11 amateur bouts that first year, then turned pro at 19. Self-managed, he was 14-5 with eight knockout victories, some of the losses coming against quality opponents (most notably Alfredo Angulo) before he probably was ready to step that far up in class. But he was gaining what he calls "on-the-job experience," not all of it coming in bouts that went on his record.

"I've been in five training camps with Bernard Hopkins," said Rosado, 27. "I consider Bernard a mentor. A lot of his sparring partners don't take advantage of the moment, but whenever Bernard would be shadowboxing or hitting the pads, I'd pay attention, studying his movements. I'd ask him questions. He filled me with knowledge."

Rosado's breakthrough year was 2012, when he fought three times and won each bout - against Jesus Soto-Karass, Sechew Powell and Charles Whittaker - inside the distance on the NBC Sports Network to rise to a No. 1 ranking at junior middleweight from the IBF. All he had to do to get a world title shot was to sit back and wait on an eventual mandatory date with IBF 154-pound champ Cornelius "K9" Bundrage (32-4, 19 KOs), who is 39 and whose best days are likely behind him.

Instead, when Rosado's promoter, J Russell Peltz, came to him with an offer to challenge Golovkin at the higher weight, Rosado and Briscoe jumped at it, even though Rosado will be a prohibitive underdog.

"I've seen a few of his fights and was impressed by him," Rosado said of Golovkin, a silver medalist for Kazakhstan at the 2004 Athens Olympics. "He's a solid guy, fundamentally sound. I never thought I would fight him so soon.

"I remember thinking this was a guy who could give Sergio Martinez [the WBC champ who is widely considered the best middleweight in the world] a hell of a fight. Next thing I know, I get a phone call from Russell asking if I'd be willing to fight him. It's pretty interesting how things go sometimes."

Few people give Rosado much of a chance against Golovkin, including Abel Sanchez, "Triple G's" trainer.

"People go to the fights looking for a knockout," Sanchez said. "I've always trained my guy to hurt somebody. Gennady is that Mike Tyson-esque kind of individual that goes out there to search and destroy."

Even Briscoe acknowledges that, while Golovkin is "one-dimensional, it's some kind of a dimension."

"Everybody says he's the most-feared, hardest-punching middleweight on the planet. You say nobody wants to fight him? OK, we'll fight him. To be great, you got to dare to be great, and Gaby wants to be great."