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Well, this is a little unexpected. Gabriel Rosado, who gave Gennady Golovkin all the credit for being a stronger, better fighter when the two clashed this past January, now says that something was wrong with Golovkin's gloves that night in New York, a claim that Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler refutes.
"I do believe that his gloves are different than any other fighter that I've fought before. I could tell you that right now. We both fought with Grants, but for whatever reason his Grants were missing a little more cushion on the knuckles. And we had a problem with that, and they said that the gloves were approved [by the New York State Athletic Commission].
" ... When he hit me in the first round, I just felt straight, solid wraps. It wasn't like it was just the impact of the glove. It felt like a little bat hitting the top of my head. So Triple-G's gloves, Grant definitely makes custom gloves for [him]. So Stevens definitely has to look out for that. ... I've never got cut in a fight. Only by a head-butt, which was four years ago. I got cut twice [over] the same eye in the second round [against Golovkin]. [Matthew] Macklin got cut early in their fight as well. It's just kind of suspect about them gloves."
Loeffler says that Rosado's team did bring something up in January, but that the commission approved the gloves:
"Whatever concerns that Gabe had or that the Rosado team had were addressed with the commission," Loeffler said. "They inspected the gloves and Grant is an approved maker with the New York commission and there was not an issue with the gloves. So from the commission standpoint, that's the only thing that I remember in that situation."
If Rosado had that big of a problem, you'd think he'd have made a bigger stink on the weekend (he says he was busy focusing on other stuff, which is fine, but that's what the rest of his team is for), or at least said something publicly in the last nine months, but I don't know.
Maybe someone should ask Matthew Macklin, Kassim Ouma, Nobuhiro Ishida, and others if they think Golovkin used tampered gloves. I mean, if someone's going to make the accusation, more or less, then it should probably be at least slightly addressed.