Rolly Romero shocks Ryan Garcia, throws Haney rematch plans into doubt

Rolly Romero scored a massive upset over Ryan Garcia tonight in Times Square.

Rolly Romero not only scored a huge upset win over Ryan Garcia tonight, but he did it in a fashion that would have been least expected, earning the win via unanimous decision over 12 rounds.

Judges scored the fight 115-112, 115-112, and 118-109 for Romero, and the win for Rolly will put some serious doubt on the anticipated rematch between Garcia and Devin Haney, who did win but did not look good on the undercard.

If Romero (17-2, 13 KO) was thought to have any real shot at the upset tonight, it would have been because of his power, which we did see flashed in the second round when he dropped Garcia (24-2, 21 KO) on a left hook.

But from there, Romero simply boxed conservatively — very conservatively, in fact, as he and Garcia combined to throw a reported third-lowest total of punches in a 12-round fight in CompuBox’s long history of tracking those numbers. That was enough to hold off Garcia, who never really looked like himself, didn’t really show any of his speed or explosiveness, and had clearly the worst night of his professional career.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that Romero’s awkwardness gave Garcia some early trouble, nor that he was able to land a good shot and put Ryan down. But in the past, quality opponents have been able to get to Rolly and take over the fight. That never happened tonight, and in fact, never seemed all that close to happening.

Even if you had Garcia rallying a bit in the middle rounds, when really neither of them were doing much of anything, Ryan never looked very dangerous and Rolly never looked uncomfortable.

It’s a disastrous return to action for Garcia, who hadn’t fought since earning a suspension following his overturned bout with Haney in April 2024, having failed the post-fight drug test. For Romero, it’s a massive burst of new life for a career that seemed it had reached its peak.

“He’s a warrior, he got up and finished the fight,” Romero said of Garcia. He also said he thinks Garcia and Haney should still do their rematch, and avoided answering if he’d like to fight Haney himself.

“Rolly fought a good fight. He caught me early. No excuses, congrats to him. He did a great job and that’s that,” Garcia said. “I think that (year off) took a lot off my body, physically and mentally. I’m just happy I made it to the ring and fought 12 rounds. Hats off to Rolly, he did a great job.”

“We’ll go to the drawing board, talk it over, and see what we do next,” Garcia said when asked what’s next.