Is Ryan Garcia sabotaging himself with Romero?

Ryan Garcia is said to have selected Roly Romero as his May 2nd opponent in Times Square, New York. It’s surprising to fans that Garcia handpicked Raleigh (16-2, 13 KOs) because he’s not a favorite and was recently knocked out last year.

Garcia vs. Romero will be the main event on Turki Al-Sheikh’s May 2 card. Devin Haney will take on Jose Ramirez in a main support fight. It should be reversed, with Haney-Ramirez as the headliner and Garcia-Romera as the main event. Ryan is more popular than Devin because of his 12 million followers on Instagram, and that’s why he’s in first place against Romero.

Boxing fans will give Ryan a pass to use Rollie as a setup at the PPV, as his next fight will be a rematch with Devin Honey in October. So they’ll have to put up with Garcia taking a can of tomatoes to Rollie Romero as he fights Devin next.

Will Garcia regret it?

Garcia is counting on Rawley to draw interest to his fight with his ability to talk trash outside the ring. That’s the main thing Romero is good at. He is a limited fighter, but he connects with fans with bizarre interviews.

Yet he has done so poorly in his fights and hasn’t looked good in a fight in years. He was knocked out by Pitbull Cruz last March and had bad fights against Ismael Barro, Manuel Jaimes, Gervonta Davis and Jackson Marinez.

Initially, there were talks between Garcia (24-1, 20 KO) and Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz. However, he decided not to accept the fight as he was scheduled to fight Angelo Fiera on February 1st. Cruz wanted to wait.

So Ryan went with Romero, 29, as his opponent. Pitbull deciding not to fight Garcia is what messed things up. But even when he decided not to play Kingry, there could have been a better opponent than Raleigh.

Ryan’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, was interested in Teofimo Lopez as his opponent, but went with Raleigh instead.