Rolly Romero shocks the world and upsets Ryan Garcia

The boxing world was sent into tailspin on Friday as Rolly Romero put a pin in the plans of a Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia rematch. Judges scored the fight 115-112, 115-112, and 118-109 for Romero, and the win for Rolly will put some serious doubt on the anticipated rematch between Garcia and Devin Haney, who did win but did not look good on the undercard. As Haney circled the ring the majority of the fight didn’t land anything of significance. 

It was a poor showing from both Haney and Garcia, but Haney was successful, and Garcia was not. Romero was able to drop Garcia in the second round with a left hook and after that point he never looked back. Romero boxed conservatively and didn’t take many risks. Romero and Garcia combined to throw a reported third-lowest total of punches in a 12-round fight in CompuBox’s long history of tracking those numbers. Garcia never really looked like himself. He didn’t really show any of his speed or explosiveness and had clearly the worst night of his professional career.

“He’s a warrior, he got up and finished the fight,” Romero said of Garcia. He also said he thinks Garcia and Haney should still do their rematch and avoided answering if he’d like to fight Haney himself. The contracts were already drawn out, but reports have surfaced that His Excellency is disappointed in both men that he’s unsure if he even still wants to do it.

“Rolly fought a good fight. He caught me early. No excuses, congrats to him. He did a great job and that’s that,” Garcia said. “I think that (year off) took a lot off my body, physically and mentally. I’m just happy I made it to the ring and fought 12 rounds. Hats off to Rolly, he did a great job.” “We’ll go to the drawing board, talk it over, and see what we do next,” Garcia said when asked what’s next.