By Dan Ambrose: Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero says he wants to challenge Errol Spence Jr for his three welterweight titles after he defeats Ismael Barroso this Saturday night on Showtime at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Rolly (14-1, 12 KOs) made it clear that the only way he’ll stay at 140 is for pay-per-view bouts involving him fighting Ryan Garcia, Gervonta Davis, or Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz.
The 27-year-old Rolly realizes that the options for big-money fights at 140 are slim, and he feels that he’d be better off going up to 147. With Rolly and Spence being with PBC, it makes it a logical, easy-to-make fight.
If Rolly stays at 140, he’ll unlikely get the PPV fights he wants. In reality, Gervonta isn’t going to fight Rolly again, and the recently beaten Ryan Garcia probably isn’t fighting him either. Cruz isn’t a big enough name for Rolly to fight on PPV.
It’s unclear how realistic it is for Rolly to get a fight against Spence, as the Texas native rarely fights anymore, and it won’t be surprising if he disappears for two or three years once he fights Terence Crawford.
If Rolly moves up to 147, he may be limited to fighting guys like Jaron Ennis, and he’ll get chewed up.
“I can stay here [140], but I want to be at 147. I don’t want to be at 140. I want to be at 147,” said Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero to the media on Friday about his desire to move up to welterweight after his fight this Saturday night against Ismael Barroso.
“The only way I’m going to fight at 140 is if I’m getting pay-per-view fights because those are what I find entertaining. Otherwise, I’m going to go up to 147 and make all those fights happen up there.
“Spence has a lot of belts. I like that Spence fight idea. It’s a mix of both,” said Rolly when asked how much of it is that he likes the Spence fight, plus the fact that he doesn’t want to make the 140-lb weigh-in limit any longer after Saturday’s fight.
“Anything above the atrocities I felt to make 135 is better. Anything other than that is important. I said pay-per-views. I’m not thinking about no belt. After this, I’m just thinking about pay-per-views,” said Rolly when asked if he’d be interested in facing IBF light welterweight champion Subriel Matias in a unification clash if he captures the WBAa 140-lb belt by beating Barroso.
“That’s all I want. I want pay-per-views. I want to show everybody that I’m the biggest star in boxing. Ryan, Tank, and me and [Isaac] Cruz at 140. We could put that on pay-per-view.
“Me and Teo are not fighting. Teo is my little brother unless it’s for 100 million dollars. Then if he doesn’t fight me, he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like himself either.
“Tune in tomorrow. Y’all going to see Rolly be a star at 140,” said Rolly about him wanting fans to watch his headliner against Barroso on Showtime this Saturday.
