“No Money” to PPV King? Rolando Romero’s Thoughts on Garcia, Belts, and a Haney Insult

Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero says he’s now entered the “PPV bracket” by capturing the WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title with his win over Ryan Garcia last Friday night in New York City. Romero (17-3, 13 KOs) points out this was his third time headlining on a pay-per-view card, and he’s gone from being a “No money” fighter to making “A lot of money in one fight.”

(Credit: Geoffrey Knott/Matchroom)

You can definitely say that Rolly is an in-demand fighter now, possibly the biggest star in the 147-lb division among the world champions. While IBF and WBA welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis might be the most technically gifted of the belt-holders in the division, Rolly is perhaps the bigger star due to his commercial appeal.

Romero is a lot more entertaining outside of the ring with his charisma and comedy angle. Ennis is ill at ease in interviews and seems like a broken record, stuck on the phrase, “When I have my fun.” I’m going to go mental if I hear that phrase again.

PPV Bracket

“I’m in the PPV bracket. I’m at the top. I’ve done three PPVs now. I’ve headlined three pay-per-view nows because me and Pitbull was a doubleheader,” said Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero to the Danza Project. “I skipped from no money to a lot of money in one fight. I want to fight the best. Everybody wants to duck around.

“It was hard to hit him to the body because he didn’t want to engage,” said Rolly about Ryan. “It’s hard to knock out people who don’t try to engage because if he had been coming forward and tried to engage in the fight, he would have been knocked out cold. There’s no way around that.”

Ryan completely shut down his offense after Romero dropped him in round two, and he never dared open up again. That knockdown affected Garcia so much that he just completely surrendered the ship to him without a fight. It was a weak way to surrender. You can only imagine what it would be like to have Ryan in the same platoon in wartime in battlefield conditions—standing up and waving the white flag of surrender when the going got tough.

“I thought it was over right there, but two seconds later, I realized, ‘This dude is still going to be there,’” said Rolly when asked about his thoughts when he dropped Ryan Garcia in round two last Friday. “So, I thought I’ll eventually hit him with the same shot [left hook], but he never threw the same shot again. So, I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Rolly could have still knocked out Garcia if he’d done these things:

1. Pressed the attack: Rolly could have applied more pressure after dropping Ryan, and kept him under a nonstop assault. Instead, Romero did the opposite, hanging back, fighting tentatively, and throwing only one punch at a time.
2. Increased punch volume: Throwing more punches would have led to Romero knocking out Garcia within the first six rounds. He didn’t do that. Rolly spent the last 10 rounds loading up on single shots, making a lot of noise, but not focusing on the volume. You could tell he feared being clipped by one of Ryan’s left hooks.
3. Focused more on headshots: The left hook Rolly dropped Kingry with in round two showed that he was vulnerable to the head. Surprisingly, he didn’t take advantage of that by throwing more to the head. Many of the jabs Rolly was throwing were at Garcia’s torso in the second half of the fight.
4. Taken action to the inside: Romero should have forced the action to the inside to get past Garcia’s stiff jab, and then worked him over with hooks and uppercuts to the head. Ryan needs space to throw his short left hook. He wouldn’t be able to do that if Romero had stayed on his chest, smothering his main weapon, and hammering him. Again, fear was the reason Rolly failed to do this.

Haney History

“When I had a championship belt at 135, he [Devin Haney] tried to make a fight between me and him,” said Romero about an attempt from Devin Haney to negotiate a fight with him when he was still at lightweight. “He wanted $8 million and me get $100K. So, ‘Oh, I called out Rolly. I sent him a contract.’ Did he really send me a contract? I sell way more tickets than you. Does that really sound like he wants to fight? These guys all fight for money, and will sell their a** for money. Me, I fight for belts,” said Romero.

Rolly is letting fans know about the arrogance of Haney back when he was still at 135, trying to call the shots with him while in the challenger role to his WBA interim belt.