Rozier Says Sadam Ali is Now a Top 10 Welterweight

by Victor Salazar

Sadam Ali has been on the HBO air twice and both times he has won while impressing. On the co-feature of Wladimir Klitschko-Bryant Jennings at Madison Square Garden in New York, Ali won a tough decision over Francisco Santana who is always a tough customer in the ring. Ali’s coach, Andre Rozier felt Santana was what Ali needed and his fighter rose to the occasion.

“[The fight] was a rough, hard fought affair,” The trainer said on the fight. “Francisco pushed a man to his limits. Sadam rose to the occasion and everything we trained for came out in the ring.”

With a performance like Ali’s this weekend, Rozier certainly feels his fighter is a top 10 fighter in the stacked welterweight division

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t say that at this point,” stated Rozier. “He’s showing all the attributes of a top 10 athlete. He poses the skills and ability to be a world champion. I would love for him to be a world champion but his time will come. We’ll deal with that one punch at a time.”

Regarding dealing with the fighters in the upper top 10, Rozier feels his fighter needs a little more fine tuning to be able to beat the top welterweights

“He’s on the cusp of being right there with them,” the trainer said. “His capability with speed, we’re going to fine tune all of his capabilities to use that to beat the other top 10 opponents.”

It was an electric atmosphere in Madison Square Garden, something that Rozier feels Ali will take away if and when he headlines his own fights down the road.

“[Fighting at MSG] was electric and unbelievable,” explained Rozier. “It was a fantastic forum, it’s the mecca of boxing, Madison Square Garden, and we made the big house. Now that he’s felt that type of atmosphere, from here on out, nothing will be too big.”