By Ryan Burton

Junior middleweight contender Gabriel Rosado (21-5) is less than two weeks away from the biggest fight of his career.  On January 19th he faces WBA/IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (24-0) at Madison Square Garden in New York in a HBO televised fight.

Rosado chatted with us about the fight  on the most recent edition of The Boxing Lab, BoxingScene's official audio show.  He admitted to being impressed with Golovkin's most recent fight in which Golovkin knocked out Grzegorz Proska in his HBO debut. He also said that he doesn't feel Proska is as talented as he is and that will be one of the key differences in the fight. 

"I was impressed with him when I watched him but I wasn't impressed with the caliber of guy he fought," Rosado said while also pointing out that he feels he has a clear edge in speed over his opponent.   "I know I have better hand speed than him. I'm a lot quicker. Everyone talks about his power but I have a lot of power myself. I went 3-0 with 3 knockouts in 2012. I knocked out (Jesus) Soto Karass in 5 rounds and he had never been knocked out. He's not the only one with dynamite in his hands," he continued.

The fighter of Puerto Rican descent knows that his opponent is a hard hitter but insists that he isn't getting caught up in all of the hype surrounding Golovkin.  He feels that he has just as good of a chance of scoring a knockout as Golovkin does.

"Anybody can knockout anybody. It's only 10 ounce gloves," Rosado stated.  "I've sparred big guys. I've sparred Bernard Hopkins, Allan Green. I'm not really caught up in the hype of how hard he punches. I'm going to focus on my game plan."

Rosado is so confident that he went as far as to predict that he will win via knockout. He told us that he doesn't see the fight making it to the 10th frame.

"I've trained hard for this fight and I really want to knock him out. If I win by decision that's great but I really want a knockout. I think it will come in the 8th or 9th round," he confidently predicted. 

You can hear the interview in its entirety by clicking here:

Send questions or comments to ringsidewriter@gmail.com Follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter and tune in to The Boxing Lab, BoxingScene's official audio on Tuesdays. The show is hosted by Ernie Gabion, Luis Sandoval and Ryan Burton