Ryan Garcia says promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. initially convinced him to fight WBA light welterweight champion Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero instead of WBC 140-lb belt-holder Devin Haney.
Garcia states that after speaking to Mayweather, who promotes Rolly, he persuaded him to face him rather than Haney (31-0, 15 KOs). That fight is NOT happening, though; Ryan is now back in talks to face Devin for his WBC belt.
It’s interesting that Ryan has ratted Floyd out, revealing to the fans that he’s the one who talked him into fighting Rolly in the first place.
The negotiations with Rolly (15-1, 13 KOs) didn’t go far for Ryan as Romero secretly made a deal to defend his WBA 140-lb title against Isaac Cruz on March 30th on the undercard of Tim Tszyu vs. Keith Thurman on Amazon Prime PPV in Las Vegas.
“I’m not going to lie, Floyd’s pretty influential. He’s like, ‘Why would you do that? Why don’t you fight Rolly for the belt and then fight Haney?’ I said, ‘That makes sense, but I told the people already I’m going to fight Devin.’ He said, ‘Some things change.’ I’m paraphrasing, but I quickly decided, ‘Alright, Floyd, that makes sense,’” said Ryan Garcia to FightHype.
Ultimately, Ryan is going toward a better fight by negotiating with Haney, considering that he’s a quality fighter and not seen as an illegitimate champion, like Rolly Romero, who is viewed as a joke by fans. It would have tarnished Ryan’s reputation, such as it is, to have fought Rolly (15-1, 13 KOs) for his WBA belt.
Rolly’s 15 minutes of fame will soon be up when he defends his title against Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz on March 30th on Amazon Prime PPV and gets knocked out.
From there, Mayweather will have a hard time keeping Rolly relevant because he’s not good enough to beat any of the champions at 140, and there won’t be another referee that will prematurely stop a fight against a world champion like we saw last year when Romero won the vacant WBA title against 40-year-old Ismael Barroso.
Mayweather will be trying to pick up the pieces for Rolly’s career after he loses to Cruz, and it’ll be impossible. There’s no coming back from a loss to Pitbull. If Floyd somehow wrangles a deal to get Rolly a rematch, he’ll get blasted out again by Pitbull because he’s not cut out for fighting top-tier competition.