Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero (17-2, 13 KOs) rejuvenated his career by defeating the heavy favorite Ryan Garcia (24-2, 20 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title on Saturday night at Times Square in New York City.
Romero scored a big knockdown of Ryan in round two. Garcia never seemed to recover from that shot to fight with the intensity that he needed to have a shot at winning. The combination of Rolly’s knockdown and the constant pressure he was putting on Ryan was a key factor in his victory tonight.
The scores were 115-112, 115-112, and 118-109. Rolly outworked Garcia down the stretch in the championship rounds, controlling the action from the ninth on.
Romero’s punching power kept Garcia on the defensive, and unwilling to take any risks to try to land anything significant. When Ryan did start trying to get back into the fight in the mid rounds, Rolly shut him down by applying pressure with his jab and power shots.
Romero was loading up on huge homerun punches and barely missing. Just seeing those shots whizzing by may have kept Ryan from getting any ideas of fighting more aggressively. He didn’t want to get clipped again.
Garcia looked sluggish, slow, tired and afraid throughout the fight. The second round knockdown took too much out of him, destroying his will to win. He seemed to just give up.
It’s unknown if Ryan was fighting with an injury to one of his arms, because he wasn’t throwing his left hook smash, and rarely using his right hand during the fight. He allowed Rolly to dictate the fight, and control the action. Rolly seemed to realize in the last quarter of the fight that Garcia was unwilling to throw. At that point, Romero gained confidence and was doing whatever he wanted from rounds 9-12.
Last Updated on 05/02/2025
