By Jim Calfa: Trainer Teofimo Lopez Sr. says Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero (14-1, 12 KOs) made a crucial mistake of leaning in with his right hand all night in his sixth-round knockout loss to WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Teofimo Sr. says he was screaming at Rolly from the audience, trying to get him to stop leaning in with his punches so often.
Eventually, that bad tendency on Rolly’s part caught up with him in the sixth round when Gervonta caught him with a left to the head a split second before he unleashed a right hand.
Tank’s left hand got there first, dropping Rolly to the canvas on his knees. Rolly got back to his feet but the fight was stopped anyway by referee David Fields at 2:39 of the sixth.
“He [Tank Davis] was getting blown away. This was one of those fights where anybody could have gotten knocked out,” said Teofimo Lopez Sr. to Fighthype moments after Tank Davis stopped Rolly Romero in the sixth.
“I give props to Rolly for doing a magnificent job,” Teofimo Sr. continued. “He learned a lot in this fight. I’ve never seen him fight like this. He kept his distance really good, and that right hand was worrying me,” said Teofimo Sr. about Rolly’s bad habit of leaning forward when throwing his right hand.
“I was screaming, ‘Don’t lean in with the right hand,’ and he was leaning in with all his punches. Once you put the pyramid, you’ve got to stay on the outside.
“There was no way for him to lose that fight, but he got carried away. He should have just kept on winning every round. The only way that Tank was going to win that fight was by knockout, and he did what he had to do.
“Props to Tank, he did an amazing job. Let’s go, that was a great fight because, in the future, we’re [Teofimo Lopez Jr] are going to fight him. There’s no wait, there’s no running.
“My son is there. We might fight somebody. I don’t want to name any names, but we’re fighting on August 13th. Everything is out, everything is looking good.
“My son has started training again. We make the official camp on Monday, and I got to gather the people that are going to be working with us. I can’t wait to come back and bring excitement like we saw here today. This s*** was really exciting.
“It’s hard for me to like fights well, but this s*** was explosive,” said Teofimo Sr.
