Is Rosario underrated?...

Overrated IMO, hes in the IBHOF while Curry, Nunn and Hamed arent? They were held in a much higher regard during thier peaks and are straight up better fighters.

 

The one thing which Rosario showed which Curry ,Nunn and Hamed did not is perseverance. After Ramirez he could have declined like they did, but he didn't just come back he almost beat Hector and then did beat Bramble easily. Fought Chavez, won the lightweight title again against I think Nazario, and then later beat Garza at 140. To me he brushed off his loses better than those guys and his wins were devastating. Not that Curry vs. Mccrory and Nunn vs. Kalambay were not good but Rosario was always a possibility to win by knockout in any fight.

 

one last comment. His fight with Bramble was incredible. Bramble was a 4-1 favorite and Rosario slowly took over the fight in 2 rounds. When I mean slowly, you could see Bramble not being as aggressive as the first round went on and Rosario would counter with the left any Bramble threw a punch. The speed of Rosario was too much and even his jab started to land. Then when round 2 came Rosario started to slip Bramble jab and bend to his left to position himself to land his left uppercut on Bramble, whom Rosario said was too straight up to beat him. And that left uppercut started the punches landing on Bramble. I remember it was a left uppercut which Rosario landed on Bramble on the ropes and then Rosario knew he could hurt him and he just counterpunched and had Bramble backing up. Once he hurt him with that uppercut on the ropes it was just a minute until he stopped him with numerous punches. One of the best 2 round demolisions I have seen as well as Hearns vs. Duran. It was apparent after this fight that Rosario was underrated and Bramble overrated. It was that clean a win.

 

Rosario got beaten senseless and stopped on his feet too much for him to ever be underrated. He was what he was and that's how he's been fairly evaluated for the most part.

 

Held his own with Randall, Camacho, Ramirez, Davis and beat the **** out of Bramble, Viruet, Jones, Nazario and Garza.

I think most would admit he's fairly fortunate to be in the HOF, but hey if Barry McGuigan and Brian Mitchell are in...

 

El Chapo was really "on" for that Bramble fight. It was his high water mark. Very impressive. I think he was just fortunate not to have been around in Duran's reign as lightweight champ. If they met, it would have turned out to be one of those affairs with the ref mercifully rescueing a helpless Rosario hanging on the ropes taking barrage after barrage from Duran, ala the Ramirez fight. Duran would have been waaay too much for him, as would, in a totally different way, Ken Buchanan.

 

Hamed was NOT better than Rosario.

 

I think if anything, he's probably overrated a bit. He could KO just about anyone he hit solidly, but he depended on that one punch to bail him out too many times. He got that "Puncher's Disease." And when he was hurt, he just completely unravelled. Had no idea at all how to hold, and couldn't recover quickly. He was a lot like Frank Bruno in that way, but at least Bruno learned to hold by the time he fought McCall. In essence, if you hurt him at all, he was done.

He looked as good as he did against Bramble because Bramble foolishly believed his own press, that his chin was impregnable. He called it his "coconut," and he essentially invited Rosario to try it out. Less than two rounds in, he was clubbed to his haunches saying to himself, "Oh hey, look, the floor!"

 

Excellent fighter, sits just a level below the very best fighters at lightweight imo. I had him winning the Camacho fight, would have been interesting to see how he would be rated had he got the decision.

 

If it were somehow possible for Rosario to have never realized how hard he hit, I think it would have made him a better fighter.

 

Yeah i would say he was, people just extremely hate hamed and that causes him to get underrated. I have hamed clearly above rosario on my all time list and that wont be changing anytime soon.

 

Its depends on the perspective. There were some pretty high expectations for Rosario early on. I believe some referred to him as the Duran of the 80s.

His talent was evident. I guess his inconsistancey was the biggest thing that cost him ATG status. He had some nice wins.

Correct me if im wrong but didnt he past his prime win a 140lb belt? I thought he beat Garza in Sac. Not sure though.