Ryan Garcia still seems hellbent on facing Rolando Romero, despite Romero having recently expressed his wishes to face Isaac Cruz instead. In the early morning of today, Garcia announced that the fight would happen on his Twitter account and accompanied his statement with a poster featuring himself and Romero fighting for the WBA super lightweight title. Peculiarly, Garcia indicated that the fight would be broadcasted by DAZN, which is a curious move given Romero’s recent rant clearly showed his disinterest in fighting on the streaming service.
“4-20 Live on DAZN. PPV tickets and location soon. It’s time to enter battle once again,” Ryan Garcia (24-1, 20 KO’s) stated on Twitter.
“I understand that there has been a lot of confusion but this fight is happening. I’m happy to announce this. Everyone is going to post this soon don’t worry. I love you guys.”
Ryan Garcia’s announcement will be taken with a pinch of salt given his change of course in fighting Devin Haney to suddenly angle for a fight with Rolando “Rolly” Romero (15-1, 13 KO’s) after coming in contact with Floyd Mayweather Jr., founder of Mayweather Promotions to which Romero is currently signed.
Despite it being rather unclear as to whether a fight will actually occur―as no official announcement was made by anyone other than Garcia, Garcia does seem genuine with his attempts to fight Romero; as evident by his insistence he would not fight anyone else but Romero after reports surfaced of negotiations between him and Jose Ramirez (28-1, 18 KO’s).
Garcia’s claims that the fight would take place on April 20th have also been scrutinized following his revelation that the fight would be broadcasted on DAZN. With Mayweather Promotions affiliated with Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), fighters signed with management company PBC rarely fight on other networks. However, this may be plausible given the collaboration between PBC and Amazon Prime has not yet formally produced a boxing show for this year.
Rolly Romero recently expressed he wanted to fight Isaac Cruz (25-2-1, 17 KO’s) in a profanity-ridden rant where he aimed shots at DAZN, Ryan Garcia and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya, but a different course has now apparently set in for the Mayweather Promotions fighter. Romero has thus far not reacted to Garcia’s statement.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s own hand in this can likely not be ignored. Despite his affiliation with PBC, Mayweather had previously fought on DAZN in an exhibition against British Youtuber Deji Olatunji in 2022, and as the head of Mayweather Promotions, he does have the flexibility to allow Romero to fight on other networks if he chooses.
While Mayweather currently still serves as the promoter of Romero, the former multi-division champion has also been linked to signing Ryan Garcia. While Garcia’s contract status is unknown, there are hints that it might be expiring soon which was further speculated when Garcia and Mayweather were spotted together in Las Vegas earlier this month.
If the reports are true, it will be interesting to see how the WBA will respond. While Ismael Barroso (25-4-2, 23 KO’s) is currently known as the WBA super lightweight interim champion and the WBA 140 lbs title is vacant, Romero―as the champion-in-recess as he was relegated to last year―was supposed to return against the winner of Davies-Barroso whereafter the WBA title would be made available.
However, the WBA appears to have zero interest in giving Barroso the opportunity judging by the different reports that surfaced of Romero fighting anyone but the interim champion. With this much confusion and uncertainty at hand, it is impossible to predict what will happen next and what actually is true, but at least there appears to be some movement in the 140 lbs division which has recently seemed to undergo a transformation of sorts and is now heating up to be one of the most prevalent divisions in the sport.
