LOS ANGELES \u2013 Rolly Romero has made no secret about the shoddy way he was treated as the \u201cB side\u201d fighter to Ryan Garcia in the Saudi Arabia-funded promotion of Friday\u2019s Times Square card in New York.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, going without a hotel room booked, fretting about no purse funds in escrow and opting to walk to the venue himself may have been the best thing that ever happened to Romero.<\/p>\n
On a weekend that the handsomely paid Garcia, co-main-event fighter Devin Haney and Saudi Arabia headliner Canelo Alvarez all turned in clunker showings void of action, Romero, 17-2 (13 KOs, produced a knockdown-paced unanimous-decision victory to capture the WBA secondary welterweight belt and position himself strongly for big fights of his choosing.<\/p>\n
At first glance from his newfound perch, Romero said he wouldn\u2019t mind waiting for Manny Pacquiao to defeat WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios Jnr in their tentatively planned July 19 bout in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
As Alvarez, Haney and Garcia have been criticized for low-punch outputs in outings that ruined a planned high-profile Garcia-Haney showdown in the fall and dampened enthusiasm for Alvarez\u2019s September 12 bout against fellow four-division champion Terence Crawford, Romero was hailed by his promoter Premier Boxing Champions as a beacon to how champions should perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, it comes down to this \u2013 and this comes from a fighter \u2013 you guys shouldn\u2019t be overpaying fighters because then it makes them not want to have to perform, especially when they have another fight lined up,\u201d Romero told BoxingScene in a special interview session with reporters. \u201cThen it\u2019s, \u2018All I have to do is survive this fight for the next paycheck.\u2019 It\u2019s really messing up the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got to do it like the UFC does: you have a shit performance, [then], \u2018Fuck you, you all not getting paid no goddamn money.\u2019 It\u2019s taking away the hunger of these fighters. They\u2019ve got a guaranteed check next. They\u2019re protecting their \u20180.\u2019 I\u2019ve got two losses, but both of my losses came in big fights. It\u2019s never derailed anything. I keep coming back. I have balls because I keep coming back and going after what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Romero was intent to draw that distinction, a point supported by his promoter, Tom Brown, and former super-middleweight champion Caleb Plant at Wednesday\u2019s press event to promote Plant\u2019s May 31 bout against Armando Resendiz at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese other guys keep protecting their \u20180,\u2019 and saying, \u2018Oh it\u2019s not enough money, so I\u2019m not going to fight.\u2019\u201d Romero said. \u201cI fight for belts. I fight for legacy. These other guys who\u2019ll only fight for [that] money, it\u2019s sad and it\u2019s destroying the sport.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brown said while the plan is for Plant and unbeaten former two-division champion Jermall Charlo to fight after winning their respective bouts on May 31, he is confident the drive and character of the fighters should ensure that happens.<\/p>\n
Simply paying elite fighters to carry out that mission has clearly been revealed as a flawed business plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to handle business in impressive fashion and then we\u2019ll go from there,\u201d Plant said.<\/p>\n
Given all the pre-fight disruption he endured, Romero clarified that, \u201cI got paid.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now, after the Times Square main-event triumph, he\u2019s guaranteed himself he\u2019ll be paid more lucratively next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2013 Rolly Romero has made no secret about the shoddy way he was treated as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,23807,23806,32436,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-83604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-rolando-romero","10":"tag-rolly-romero","11":"tag-ryan-garcia-vs-rolando-romero","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114470199199996988","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}