Not surprisingly, she also was a cheerleader.
When the fights were on, she was at her dad's side.
Jamie Peachey
Rosado's love of boxing was instilled in her by her father.
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"Boxing was a really big deal for us, for our family," she says. "We couldn't afford to go to boxing matches, but we would always watch them on TV. My dad would invite everyone over, and it would just be this party atmosphere."
Rosado lost her father to cancer on the night of her senior prom. Just two days before the dance, he was admitted to the hospital, a common occurrence during his 20-year battle with the disease.
They talked on the phone before the prom, and he told her to have a good time and take plenty of pictures for him.
Hours later, a call from a family friend sent her rushing from the dance to the hospital. When she got there, he was in the final moments of life.
She held his hand, told him she loved him, and begged him to hang on: "We need you. Please don't leave us," she remembers saying. "But he just couldn't anymore."
Kiki Rosado died at 41, leaving behind Michelle and her younger sister and brother.
She struggled over the loss as she studied engineering, first at the University of Pittsburgh and, later, at Temple University. She never got a degree, but she landed a job at a Philadelphia engineering firm at age 19.
Five years ago, a job offer from Climatec in Phoenix brought her to the Valley. She went to work as a "sales engineer," defined by Climatec as someone who markets the company's energy-efficient technologies to commercial buildings.
As part of her job, the petite, 5-foot Latina has to tour construction sites. On an initial visit to a Phoenix site, she was stopped by the building superintendent and told that she needed to wear a hard hat. He reached for a standard, white construction hat and handed it to her.
She politely declined and walked back to her car.
She came back a couple of minutes later with her own hard hat — a hot-pink number with a Hello Kitty sticker on the side — custom-made for her by one of her other clients.
She walked through the site, making recommendations on the type of equipment they could install in the building to make it the most efficient.
"I could tell they were sizing me up," the self-promoter recalls of that day, grinning. "But 10 minutes into my survey of the site, they're thinking: 'This girl knows her stuff.'"
Once she was here a few years, she started checking out the scant boxing scene in Phoenix and Tucson and eventually started dating a boxer and helping him with his career.
"I can't say I managed him, but I tried to advise him," she tells www.boxingin sider.com. "I soon realized that working with [boxers] is a lot of work. They are demanding at times and want to be treated like . . . champion[s], even if they are . . . four-rounder fighter[s].
"As much as I love the sport, I started to think that I'd do better as a promoter. There are so many young boxers in the Phoenix area who need the exposure and activity."
Her plans started coming together at a boxing match in Tucson, where she met Reggie Demic, a businessman behind Sonoran Capital Group, a boxing-promotions firm.
The two talked about teaming up for events.
Rosado formed Face to Face Events, her own boxing-promotions company, and collaborated with Demic to produce the opening Friday Night Fights — an event that came together using her muscle and his money.
Anti-Mexican sentiment in Arizona has damaged the Latino-dominated boxing scene, for sure. But the popularity of mixed martial arts and professional boxing's shady reputation also have helped put the sport on the ropes.
MMA pits two fighters, usually in a cage, and allows them to use a combination of fighting styles — employing fists, feet, knees, elbows.
"MMA took over boxing [not just in Arizona but across the United States] because it is more violent and physical, while boxing is more skillful," Rosado says. "MMA just exploded, and it took a lot of boxing fans."
Bob Arum, head of Top Rank, a national boxing-promotions company, has been in the business for more than 45 years. He says boxing is making a comeback.
Arum acknowledges that some boxing fans have moved over to mixed martial arts, but he says the combat sport's popularity won't destroy boxing, because MMA's fan base predominantly is young white males.
"Hispanics don't care anything for it," he told USA Today in February. "Most African-Americans don't watch it."
Arum said the increasing populations of American blacks and, especially, Latinos, with whom boxing has a strong fan base, ensure the future success of the sport.
"I really think that great, great years are again coming for boxing in this decade," the 79-year-old promoter exuded.
As proof, Arum noted that he had deals lined up for upcoming boxing matches on Showtime, pay-per-view, HBO, Fox, and ESPN.
Indeed, the number of boxing events scheduled this year in the Valley is slightly outpacing previous years.
