A card that promised action delivered on ESPN2 last night. In the main event, Gabriel Rosado battered, dropped, and stopped Glen Tapia in six. Tapia did just enough to make it entertaining, but he was again overmatched here. The co-main event stole the show. Alejandro Barrera and Keandre Gibson put on a terrific fight to open the card that was even better than the good main event..
I don’t want to see Glen Tapia (23-5, 15 KOs) keep fighting. Fights are stopped when fighters can no longer intelligently defend themselves and Tapia basically enters the fight in that state. His offense is pretty good and he can punch, but Glen Tapia cannot defend himself in the squared circle.
As in all his fights, Tapia looked good in stretches here. Whenever he can press and attack, he excels. He had a strong second round, for example. Whenever someone throws back, however, he gets hurt and it becomes unpleasant to watch. This happened at the end of the first and then basically from the fourth round to the finish in the sixth. Gabriel Rosado (24-11, 14 KOs) is an average puncher, but it doesn’t matter when every shot thrown lands.
This marks four losses in a row for Glen Tapia, three by stoppage. Rosado will appear to be re-energized by this fight, but don’t be fooled. He is still the same good, but not quite good enough for the top of the division guy that he has always been. Glen Tapia is just made for him. Glen Tapia is made for everyone.
Keandre Gibson (18-1, 7 KOs) scored a narrow and much needed majority decision win over the always game Alejandro Barrera (29-4, 18 KOs) in the card’s co-main event. This was quite the excellent fight too. Gibson came out behind a strong jab and won the first, but Barrera started to come on in the second and then really turned it up in the third. I thought he was bothering Gibson, but suddenly in the fourth Keandre came out and hurt him badly right at the start of the round to shift things back.
I had them alternating rounds five and six, but I thought Gibson swept seven through ten and scored it 97-93 in his favor. With that said, these were competitive rounds that wouldn’t have been impossible to score Alejandro Barrera. They were very uptempo with both guys landing. I preferred the work of Keandre Gibson, but Barrera was hitting harder despite the shots landing on him appearing flashier. I didn’t think the draw card that came back was as offensive as Bernardo Osuna made it out to be.
