By Norm Frauenheim–
He calls himself Unknown. For unknown Louis Rose, it’s a nickname and a lot more. It sums up where’s he been and maybe provides the motivation for where he hopes to go.
He used to spend his nights sleeping in an old car.
For eight months, he says, that was home.
No address there. Not much of a future, either.
But futile dreams from restless hours on an eroded front seat of a rusting car are gone.
These days, Rose is risking real dreams as a middleweight without amateur experience against plenty of tough challenges, including Friday night against unbeaten prospect and 2010 national Golden Gloves champion Rob Brant at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix in Showtime’s ShoBox: The Next Generation (10:30 p.m. ET/PT).
The non-televised portion of the card – a Greg Cohen, Roy Jones Jr. and Iron Boy joint promotion – is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. (PT).
Rose’s chances? Not good. In Brant, he faces a fighter with an amateur pedigree similar to that Ievgen Khytrov, a former Olympian and a Ukrainian prodigy who knocked him out in the first round of a bout in Tulsa last November.
Brant (17-0, 11 KOs) is thought to be among the best in that new generation ShoBox advertises. The 25-year-old fighter from Saint Paul, Minn., had a reported amateur record of 101-22. That means he’s well-versed in all the fundamentals, finesse and tricks.
Rose isn’t. He grew up trying to figure out where he’d find his next meal. There are some lasting lessons in learning that kind of footwork, too. Lately, Rose (13-2-1, 5 KOs) has displayed some instinctive resiliency, perhaps a byproduct of his homeless days.
He came back from the devastating loss to Khytrov with a stubborn display of athleticism. In two bouts, both in Arizona, he scored stoppages of then-unbeaten Milorad Zizic in March and Andrew Hernandez in August.
In both, he fought as if he knew what was at stake. He battled to keep an optimistic future intact, which is a long way from the dead-end he saw every time he woke up from those long nights in that old car.
Rose, 26, turned to boxing when there wasn’t much else. He didn’t know his dad. He didn’t know much about his family. One day, he walked into a Long Beach gym, looking to work off some anger. He decided he’d rather hit a bag or a sparring partner instead of an old steering wheel. That’s when he ran into Panayotis Carabatsos, a former Greek amateur and today the owner of a popular Los Angeles restaurant.
Carabatsos liked what he saw. He offered to train Rose. Eventually, the relationship grew from that of trainer and fighter. Rose moved in. He almost became a son for Carabatsos and his wife, Hanah.
Before long, Rose began to adopt some of the Greek culture. That’s evident today. His robe is split into two colors, American on one side and Greek on the other.
It is just one part of an evolving identity, which might allow him to one day become The Great Unknown.
