Erick Rosa has held out long enough for his shot at consolidating his current title.
The secondary WBA strawweight titlist from the Dominican Republic will move forward with his career, In accordance with a recent WBA ruling. Rosa is set to return to the ring versus a yet-to-be-named opponent on August 25 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The decision comes as the WBA recently called for a July 21 purse bid hearing to determine promotional rights for Rosa’s title consolidation bout versus WBA ‘Super’ strawweight titlist Thammanoon Niyomtrong. The re-ordered title fight came with a stipulation that allowed for both boxers to enter non-title fights before facing each other since both have been out of the ring for a lengthy period.
Rosa will plan to challenge Niyomtrong upon the completion of his homecoming. The fight will mark the first for the unbeaten Dominican since a December 2021 points win over former IBF titlist Vic Saludar. He was then due to next challenge Niyomtrong, only for several delays to force the fight to a purse bid.
The December 2022 session was won by Petchyindee Boxing Promotions, Niyomytomg’s promoter whose bid of $140,000 outpaced Shuan Boxing ($122,000), Rosa’s career-long promoter.
The fight was budgeted to take place March 1 in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand. As previously reported by Boxing Scene, their March 1 bout ran into trouble when Rosa (5-0, 1KOs) was detained by Thai immigration officials upon arrival in Bangkok. Rosa’s passport did not meet the requirements for Dominicans to travel to Thailand, though it remains unclear why he was not stopped upon boarding a plane en route to Thailand.
A breakdown in communication between his team–led by promoter Belgica Pena of Shuan Boxing—and Petpiya Fight left Rosa’s travel status in limbo before receiving permission to return home. The development thus killed plans for the fight, to the detriment of Petpiya who invested heavily into the event.
All told, Rosa (5-0, 1KO) will have been out of the ring for 20 months by fight night.
“This has been the longest inactive period of my career,” Rosa stated. “I’m fine-tuning everything in training camp to make sure I fine tune every detail to be able to fight in front of my people at the absolute highest level.”
With a win, Rosa will next be expected to face Niyomtrong or face the threat of his title being removed from existence. Similarly, failure by Niyomtrong to honor what would be the twelfth defense of the ‘Super’ title he has held since a June 2016 win over Byron Rojas.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox