Winners and Losers: Rolly, Garcia, Haney, Teofimo, more
Rolly Romero and Teofimo Lopez get to talk that talk today. Everyone else from last night’s show, not so much.
WINNER: Rolly Romero
Obviously. Duh. No kidding. But even more than winning the fight and grabbing a secondary belt and all that, Rolly (17-2, 13 KO) received a massive boost to his career going forward with his upset win over Ryan Garcia.
At 29, Romero isn’t old, but it really felt like we’d seen about all we were ever going to see from him. Much like Garcia, he’s a fighter whose career had been carefully piloted by others, leading him to a secondary belt at 135 lbs and a kinda-legit belt at 140. Even in his more notable wins, there was frequently controversy.
PBC got him to a pay-per-view main event against Gervonta “Tank” Davis, and after he followed that TKO loss with the iffy Barroso win and another TKO loss to Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz, it seemed like all that was going to be juiced from Rolly being a trash talker who could draw some attention to his fights.
Beating Garcia, though, gives him a secondary belt at 147 lbs. And technically, if you want to, you can call Rolly a three-division world champion now. He’s going to have options, because upper tier welterweights would love to get a crack at him.
Did he show real improvement on Saturday? Time will tell. Garcia was awful in that fight, just looked flat and dispassionate,
WINNER: Teofimo Lopez
Of the three “main event” A-sides, only Teofimo (22-1, 13 KO) performed to positive expectations and hopes, handling his business with a clear and clean win over Arnold Barboza Jr, retaining the WBO title and suggesting a move up to 147 to face top dog Jaron “Boots” Ennis.
Not only did Lopez win, but he was good, and he did it against a crafty, smart fighter, with those type opponents having given him trouble recently (Sandor Martin, Jamaine Ortiz). Teofimo has always seemed to struggle mainly with his own frustrations, really — when fights don’t go as he expected, he gets flustered and can get stuck in gear. But when he’s dialed in like he was on Saturday, you see the skills and all-around ability he has.
Is he elite elite? Nah. But he’s also just 27 years old still. Teofimo has been given consistent promotional push and attention since turning pro. He was a guy Top Rank and ESPN presented as a current and long-term cornerstone of their boxing “brand.” With his youth, there is still potential for him to get even better over the next few years. Maybe he just had a little rough patch. Maybe it’s behind him and he’s turned a corner.
Or maybe not. Maybe he will always be inconsistent. Maybe Barboza’s type of craftiness was tailor made for Teofimo. We’ll see, but I don’t doubt that he’s serious about going up to fight Boots Ennis, because Teofimo has shown a sincere willingness to take risks, and a real desire to be great.
LOSERS: Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney
One actually lost, the other lost by virtue of putting on an all-time stinker performance even when you have reasonable expectations for Devin Haney as an “entertainer.”
Haney (32-0, 15 KO) looked lousy against a cooked Jose Ramirez. A better, more aggressive fighter might have been a real problem for Haney on Saturday, as Devin just did not look confident in his ability to take a punch, laterally moving around the ring in a fashion that it’s fair to call it “running.” He looked truly reluctant to engage, starting off a bundle of nerves who was trying to land big shots, and when it turned out Ramirez is still a very competent pro and also Haney didn’t miraculously become a puncher by putting on four more lbs, Devin just kind of poked and scampered his way to a wide, brutally dull points win.
Haney vs Ramirez was historically uneventful by CompuBox numbers. And then came Garcia vs Romero, which was just a tad worse on that same token (number of punches thrown), with only Romero’s second round knockdown of Garcia and the upset outcome making it seem more exciting.
As Haney was caught chuckling ringside while watching Garcia (24-2, 20 KO) struggle, it was remarkable to think back a year when their fight was one of the biggest in boxing. The events since — Garcia’s failed drug test, Haney managing to lose credibility and support with fans anyway because of his own media behavior, both of them taking just over a year off — have them both looking like welterweight also-rans at this moment in time.
Regarding the performances alone, I thought Garcia looked rusty and mentally disengaged, while I thought Haney just looked dreadfully concerned at all times. Both of them were awful. And that’s a lousy way to try and sell a rematch, though that sort of thing has been done in the past even in similar situations. Neither of them have ever had lower standing than they do right now.
Like Lopez, Haney is young enough, definitely, to have this be a rough patch and get back to where he was. But 147 is going to be tough for him, and unlike Teofimo, whose issues seem to come from expectations of himself not being met in certain fights, Haney’s current problems may be something much more worrisome. A true loss of confidence can do in any talented fighter.
LOSERS: Arnold Barboza Jr and Jose Ramirez
Finally, Barboza (32-1, 11 KO) got his world title chance, and he did not make it count. Not only didn’t he make it count, but he just looked like a pretender, for the most part, and that was coming off of two good wins. This was more the Barboza we saw struggle badly with Sean McComb than the one we saw take a deserved win over Jack Catterall.
Barboza’s 33. He can certainly get another opportunity or three, boxing isn’t really a meritocracy, but I expect if he does it will be in a much bigger underdog role, with far less belief that he deserves the opportunity. For now, it’s back to the drawing board for the hard-working fighter. If nothing big ever comes along, he can always say he got to take his shot, even if it was arguably overdue, and even if he came up well short.
Ramirez (29-3, 18 KO) is 32 and just does not look anything like a contender anymore. Not that he’s had a ton of fight night wars, but Jose has had a 12-plus-year pro career with a lot of legit fights at this point, and the miles have worn on him, probably both physically and mentally. He has looked truly uninspired in his back-to-back losses.
But Ramirez is a two-time world champion who has had a really good career. Maybe it’s just time, maybe it’s simply not there anymore. He had a name brand opponent looking ripe for the picking, but he just wasn’t able to cut off the ring and pull the trigger as much as needed, couldn’t really do anything effectively. He could fight 20 more times, really, because boxers have certainly gone from winning world titles to hanging around on small shows forever. Ideally, he’d be able to look at where things are and know it’s never going to be what it was before. But asking someone to retire from the only thing they’ve ever done at age 32 is really not as easy as fans often make it out to be. It’s hard to see a path back to being a serious contender, though.