Erick Rosa: Boxing Career and Notable Fights
Erick Rosa is a Dominican professional boxer who won the WBA minimumweight title in December 2021. He defeated defending champion Vic Saludar by split decision in Santo Domingo in only his fifth professional bout.
Earlier in his career, Rosa captured the interim WBA minimumweight title with a decision over Ricardo Astuvilca in July 2021. His rise through the division included several championship bouts in the first years of his professional career.
A rapid rise at minimumweight
Known as “Mini Pacman,” Rosa began his professional career in 2020 and reached championship level unusually quickly. The Astuvilca victory gave him an interim belt before the December contest with Saludar brought the WBA’s regular minimumweight title. Those two achievements occurred within the same calendar year.
His title status should be read in the context of the WBA’s structure at the time: Thammanoon Niyomtrong also held the organization’s super championship in the division. Rosa’s victory was therefore a regular-title win rather than a claim to sole recognition across the organization.
Moving to light flyweight
Rosa vacated the minimumweight belt in January 2024 and continued at light flyweight. In December of that year, he defeated Neider Valdez Aguilar over twelve rounds for the vacant WBA world light-flyweight championship, adding a title in a second weight division.
That reign ended against Japan’s Kyosuke Takami in Yokohama in July 2025. Takami won by a tenth-round technical knockout, handing Rosa his first professional defeat. The sequence places his early minimumweight success within a broader career that later included a second division, another championship win and the first loss of his professional record.
Further career results
The Takami defeat came at the Yokohama Buntai on July 30, 2025. Rosa entered unbeaten, but Takami dropped him twice in the tenth round. Referee Mark Nelson stopped the contest at 2:48, leaving Rosa with eight wins and one defeat. It was the first defense of the light-flyweight championship he had captured the previous December, and ended that reign after approximately seven months.
Sources
- WBA: Rosa vacates minimumweight title
- WBA: Takami–Rosa result
- WBA: Erick Rosa profile and title history
- BoxRec: Erick Rosa record
- The Ring: Erick Rosa outpoints Vic Saludar
