When he was up and coming I have heard people talk of him like a young, unpolished Wilfredo Gomez. This was mostly pre-Ramirez and I can certainly see some elements of that in say for instance the Viruet fight. Overall still an excellent boxer-puncher with that distinctive Puerto Rican defensive style.
Yeah, I could see the Gomez comparison. Although not a carbon copy, one thing he did like Gomez was create angles to hit and not be hit. He was a very good boxer with good mobillity. He started out at bantamweight and grew into a lightweight. He did fall in love with his power but I also think the gain in weight naturally took away some of his mobillity.
Good comparison with Gomez, Especcially the way his eyes would puff up!(Kidding)! Good fighter with great power in the right hand, Had two excellent wars with Jose Luis Ramirez. He arguably ruined Hector Camacho with his right hand.(Forever changed Camacho from a speedy aggresser to a Defensive clincher).
The Gomez comparison sums up his style/form pretty well. To that I'd add, he had very good all around speed and skill, but tended to use his skills more to set up the KO rather than box to the distance - which may have been to his detriment at times. As far as his career goes, he became hot **** early in his career after scoring a string of eye-catching KOs, including one over the "unknockoutable" Edwin Viruet. That earned him a fight for the vacant lightweight title vs. Jose Luis Ramirez, which he was expected to win, but instead barely won on a razor thin, controversial decision, after he faded down the stretch. He had a very memorable title defense against Howard Davis, in which Davis outboxed and shut him down for much of the fight, but Rosario rallied furiously in the last round, and dropped Davis with just a few seconds left to pull out a one-point decision (Davis appeared to have the edge in the round until being dropped). Rosario was in yet another classic fight in a rematch with Ramirez. Funny enough, this fight essentially followed the same pattern of their first fight, but condensed into four rounds. Rosario started fast and let the bombs go, and dropped Ramirez a couple of times, but Ramirez rallied back in the 3rd and 4th rounds and stopped an exhausted Rosario on his feet. IMO this fight may be the best "short" fight in history, perhaps even better than Hagler-Hearns. The loss to Ramirez was something of a landmark fight for Rosario. Even though he would go on to score some of his biggest wins/achievements in the years to come, this loss would always seem to mar his reputation, as it raised a lot of questions about his chin and resilience. His biggest career win was a shocking upset KO of Livingstone Bramble, who was very highly regarded at the time. Other career highlights include another shocking KO of Loreto Garza to become a two-division champion; a close, exciting win over a young, unbeaten prospect named Frankie Randall; and also a very close, hotly disputed decision loss to a peak Hector Camacho, in which he'd had Camacho badly hurt and on the retreat for much of the fight. In between, he also suffered a devastating defeat when JC Chavez stepped up from jr. lightweight and stormed through his punches to batter him into an 11th round stoppage. Later on, Rosario fought a rematch with Randall when both were past their primes, and Randall stopped him in a war, which earned Randall his title winning fight with Chavez.
Had nice skills, but changed after the Viruet fight.May have lasted longer if he stuck to his counterpunching skills.
He was one of the few if the only fighter to ever stop coconut head like that. Massive, devestating puncher.
