With heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez headlining UFC 188, one can only imagine the crazed atmosphere at Arena Ciudad de Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico on Saturday night.
Green, white and red flags will be waving. Thousands will be screaming. Mike Goldberg’s commentary fails will go unheard, to some degree. You get the picture.
For Charles Rosa—Mr. Ice Cold, as I like to call him—it’ll be another day at the office. The 28-year-old featherweight fighter is scheduled to compete on the UFC 188 main card against Yair Rodriguez, the featherweight winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America.
He’ll basically be acting as a one-man army in foreign territory. His weapons? Four ounce gloves, an indomitable will and a four-month training camp.
“Yeah man, hell yeah I’m ready,” Rosa told Bleacher Report. “I’ve been training for four months for this every single day. I’ve been healthy the whole camp, so I’m ready to go, locked and loaded.”
“It’s been the best training camp I’ve ever had. I’ve never had this much time to get ready for a fight, so I’m really excited to have since February, almost three or four months to get ready, and I’ve been healthy the whole time. That’s pretty rare that you can really stay healthy and be able to get through everything. I’m in the best shape of my life, and I feel like this is my time.”
Rosa was undefeated before joining the UFC and bravely accepting a fight on five day’s notice against featherweight contender Dennis Siver. Not to mention the fact that the bout was held in Sweden, which meant Rosa had to travel to foreign soil and compete against a European fighter.
Despite the little time he had to prepare, Rosa gave Siver all he could handle in his UFC debut in a bout that earned Fight of the Night honors. The judges sided with Siver on the scorecards, but after such a great performance, Rosa left with his head held high. He joined the UFC, earned a $50,000 bonus and nearly defeated a ranked opponent on short notice.
Few fighters could have pulled off that feat.
“It was my first fight on five day’s notice in another country and obviously against a top-10 guy, an experienced veteran,” said Rosa.
“But it’s something I was preparing for ever since I became pro. I was expecting to be able to take any fight that the UFC gave me. So I wasn’t surprised that that was the fight they gave me, but I went out there and fought my heart out. I went out there and fought my hardest, but I also didn’t think it was a fair fight. Dennis Siver was coming off eight months of suspension so he basically had like eight months training camp, and he was obviously ready.
“To come in on five days against a top-10 guy, a 17-fight UFC veteran. I didn’t feel defeated when I lost the fight. It went to a decision. The judges said he won. It was in Europe. It was a close fight, but there’s zero doubt in my mind that I would be beat him even if I had just a little bit more time, especially with my experience now and growing as a fighter that I would beat him if I fought him again.”
Some would call Rosa a chip off the old block—or rather a chip off the chip’s block. Fighting runs in his blood and traces all the way back to his grandfather, who boxed in the Navy. But like most aspiring fighters, his grandfather came to a crossroads where he had to make a choice between school and fighting.
An opportunity to go to Harvard persuaded his grandfather to take the educational route and pass on his dreams as a professional fighter.
“He ended up graduating from Harvard so luckily for me, I probably wouldn’t be here if he ended up picking the fighting path,” Rosa said. “Good thing he went to Harvard and got a degree and was able to support a family and have my dad who then had me. I was always raised tough in that environment.”
Another role model in Charles’ life is his uncle Tommy, otherwise known as Tom “The Bomb” Rosa or Ringside’s version of Dan Henderson. Tom still competes in Ringside tournaments and has more than 150 amateur fights under his belt. He recently won the 2015 Ringside tournament at age 45.
Even with the success of his uncle and grandfather, the fighting path was never forced on Rosa. It was something that was always ingrained in him. The heart wants what the heart wants, and Rosa’s has always leaned toward fighting.
During his school years, he recalls playing hockey, lacrosse and football because those were the more physical sports. He simply enjoyed hitting people. His childhood dream was to walk the hallowed hallways of the Boston Garden as a professional hockey player for the Boston Bruins.
But instead of scoring the winning goal for the Stanley Cup, he always envisioned “squaring off with someone on the ice and whooping them in front of the whole crowd.”
Rosa never got the chance to square off on the ice, but he did get an opportunity to square off in the cage at UFC Fight Night 59 at TD Garden, the New Boston Garden. He submitted Sean Soriano in the third round by D’Arce choke, proving life has a way of bringing things full circle.
“I was able to do that, just on a different stage in the UFC. I was able to go into the Boston Garden and square up with someone and put them away in front of the crowd,” said Rosa.
“And even the Boston Bruins team was there watching me. I ended up talking to Brad Marchand, he’s a Boston Bruins player, and he gave me tickets to one of the Florida Panthers’ games when they played because he saw me fight and he sent me a tweet and stuff.
“So I got his number and I’m friends with him now too, which is a pretty cool thing. I was like, ‘Man I’m a huge fan,’ and he was like, ‘I’m a huge fan of yours.’ So it’s cool how everything comes around. I’m living the dream.”
We’ll see if the dream continues when Rosa steps into the Octagon with Rodriguez on Saturday night. The TUF winner has a unique style that involves a lot of switch striking. He relied heavily on constantly switching between southpaw and orthodox stances in a decision win over Leonardo Morales at UFC 180.
Rosa has trained extensively with UFC welterweight star Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson. He has even sought out help training with some of the best Dutch kickboxers in the world.
There isn’t a single area of the fight in which Rosa doesn’t feel comfortable. He fully expects to drown the hometown noise by putting on the performance of a lifetime. By the end of the fight, the Mexican fans could very well be chanting “Rosa.”
“I play the fight over in my head, and I think of all the different ways,” he said.
“I see me finishing him in the first round. That’s the way I see it. Whether he wants to stand up and trade, he’s going to eat something hard, and if it hits the mat, he’s going to get submitted. … He’s going to be in for a long night. Once I get my hands on him, he’s going to be in trouble.”
Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
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