Brian Rose Can Rise From Defeat, and Rebuild Career

By Terence Dooley

Brian Rose suffered that most bitter of boxing disappointments when losing by sixth-round KO to Max Maxwell at the tail end of last month.  Sure, no fighter likes to lose in this manner but the blow is made that bit more severe when the losing fighter is/was on the cusp of a title shot going into the contest.  Rose, 25, was next in line for a shot at British 154lb boss Sam Webb but is now facing a period of rebuilding rather than the hoped for, and expected, drive towards glory.

Maxwell’s KO came courtesy of a bowling right hand, which is the type of punch that Rose, who adopts a Winky Wright style defence, would usually be expected to block.  Rose can easily dig out those earmuffs, get back on the grind and head back to the top of the domestic light-middleweight ladder. 

Also, Maxwell pressured Rose and forced Brian into making the elementary mistake of ceding ground, in the process allowing Max to build up a head of steam, a charge that was not dented by Rose’s classy counter shots.  Rose’s jab, a staple of his previous fights, was rendered ineffective but the fighter is well capable of getting some oomph behind his stick in future fights.

However, the Manchester-based boxer has many reasons to be optimistic, not least the fact that he came back strongly from an earlier career setback, a 2008 draw with Mano Salari, and, in Bobby Rimmer, he has a committed and experienced trainer.  Rose can also draw some comfort from the history of the sport, littered as it is with examples of fighters bouncing back from KO defeats to contest meaningful titles.

Indeed, plenty of fighters have sat on the brink of a title shot only to lose by KO, many of them managed to come back strongly from these damaging defeats.  Frankie Randall was closing in on a title shot only for Primo Ramos to rip Frankie’s script apart via a brutal second-round KO way back in 1987.  Randell regrouped, winning seventeen fights en route to a WBC light-welterweight win over Julio Caesar Chavez, handing the Mexican his first defeat in ninety fights in the process.

There is comfort to be taken from closer to home, also, as Rose can look to Britain’s Lennox Lewis, who lost by second-round KO to Oliver McCall only to bring about a dramatic reversal of fortune. 

Closer still, Brian can look to one of the men who worked his corner for the Maxwell defeat; Jamie Moore, who recently retired from the sport, will have reminded Rose of his own fight with Scott Dixon fight in 2001.   Moore lost that one in the fifth round but he battled back and later won British, Commonwealth and European honours at 154lb.

However, should Rose want to draw on a bit of inspiration, he could do worse than take a look on his own doorstep.  Rose, who fights out of Manchester but draws support in Blackpool, can take his lead from Brian London, a Blackpool resident, specifically the night in 1956 when London was blasted out in a single stanza by Henry Cooper – forget the scar tissue, Cooper was a murderously hard hitter in his day.

‘The Blackpool Rock’ would endure further setbacks, including two more defeats at the hands of Cooper, but, upon retirement, could look back with pride on a career that included British and Commonwealth title wins as well as heavyweight title fights against Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali.  Not bad, especially when he could have easily thrown in the towel after that first reverse to Cooper.

Rose fell to 14-1 (4) after the defeat to Maxwell, losing his ‘0’ and that aforementioned title chance in the process yet if the fistic past gives him comfort then the current state of his division, and its future, provides plenty of hope.

The British light-middleweight title was once the sole possession of Jamie Moore; Moore relinquished the belt in 2007 and it has since passed from Gary Woolcombe, Ryan Rhodes, who gave it up to pursue, and defeat, Moore for the EBU belt, Anthony Small and now Webb.  More importantly, Thomas McDonagh was given a shock title chance by Small despite the fact that the popular Mancunian stylist was coming of an eliminator loss to Webb.  Rose, therefore, can go back to the drawing board safe in the knowledge that the 154lb division could be in a state of flux for the next year – a few wins, a decent scalp, and the fighter could find himself in or around that Lonsdale belt. 

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