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United Kingdom The 5 Best Opponents for Rolly Romero After Win vs. Ismael Barroso
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Welcome to the belted class, Rolly Romero.
The charismatic, outspoken Las Vegas product added his name to the historic (albeit bloated) list of boxing's world champions Saturday night, defeating Venezuelan-born veteran Ismael Barroso by TKO in the ninth round. Romero struggled, but was able to put away his older opponent in the end.
The victory earned Romero the WBA's title at 140 pounds, which had been vacant since previous champion Alberto Puello failed a drug test before what would have been his own fight and title defense against Romero. Puello had himself won a vacated title last August.
Instead, the strap now resides with Romero, who fought for the first time since a sixth-round TKO loss to Gervonta Davis in a May 2022 bout contested at 135 pounds.
The return to prominence will no doubt suit the mic-friendly Romero, who'd engaged in some memorable trash talk before the Davis fight and is already an A-sider when it comes to fashion, frequently wearing fur coats and other memorable ensembles to media events.
The B/R combat sports team marked his promotion by assembling a list of best foes for his next stroll down the competitive runway. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments section.
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It should shock precisely no one that the list starts here.
Romero and Davis exchanged a prolonged stretch of fiery chatter before they got together in a ring last May.
And lest anyone forget, Romero was acquitting himself well until walking into a counter left hook that left him senseless and unable to continue near the end of Round 6.
He was leading through five rounds on one official scorecard and insisted not surprisingly that he'd both dominated before the finish and wanted Davis to fight him again.
"He caught me with a left hook," he said after the fight. "I'm a warrior, I wanted to continue to fight. ... I won every moment of that fight. I exposed him and we need to run that s--t back. ... I had him running ... the entire fight. He got a nice shot in. He was scared of me. He won't fight me again."
About that last part...not so fast.
Davis anointed himself the unofficial "Face of Boxing" after a KO of Ryan Garcia last month and it'd make sense at some point, now that Romero has a title belt, that he return to a weight class where he fought and won on a championship level in 2021 and to a foe who gave him one of his most difficult nights as a professional.
Both Davis and Romero compete under the Premier Boxing Champions umbrella and appear on Showtime, so the promotional side of things wouldn't be a big issue. So, if the Baltimore-born Davis is looking to add another belt to the trophy room, he's got a familiar option.
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Remember, we said Romero was a bit of a fire-starter on the mic.
So you can file his suggestion during fight week that he'd like a crack at three-belt welterweight champ Errol Spence Jr. into the scorched-earth folder.
Spence, for those who've forgotten due to his inactivity, is an unbeaten Texan with 22 KOs in 28 wins who's held one claim or another to title status at 147 pounds for six years.
He's fought just once since the end of 2020 and seems perpetually immersed in negotiations to meet fellow welterweight champ Terence Crawford in a match whose endless run-up is making it this generation's hand-wringing answer to Mayweather-Pacquiao.
And if Romero can get himself a piece of the action in the interim, why not?
To him, the fact that Spence would have a 1.5-inch advantage in height and a four-inch edge in reach, not to mention a decade's worth of experience at a higher weight class, means little.
"Spence has a lot of belts. I like that Spence fight idea," he said.
"... I'm just thinking about pay-per-views. That's all I want. I want pay-per-views. I want to show everybody that I'm the biggest star in boxing."
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If you can't get the A-side, get the guy the A-side just beat.
Though his brand is a bit tarnished following his seventh-round KO loss to Davis last month in 2023's biggest fight so far, Ryan Garcia will return to the ring at some point with many of the same qualities that made him such a magnetic draw as an unbeaten fighter.
He's still a handsome kid. He's still got KO power. And he still comes with the sort of social media numbers that enable an outsized audience whenever he performs.
Add in the fact that he claimed to be moving permanently to 140 pounds after the Davis bout and you have yourself a ready-made title fight. Two guys who've lost to Davis trying to one-up each other for a prime spot at a would-be rematch.
Romero, even before he became a champion, was all-in during fight week:
"There's definitely the Ryan Garcia fight. I mean, I think everybody's asking for me versus Ryan right now, especially at 140. You know, we're both at 140 now. And I think that's the fight. You know, I think that's a massive fight and, you know, boxing needs that fight, you know? It has a long buildup – a long, long buildup."
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If you're looking to set up a tournament for guys who've lost to Davis and are looking for ways to cajole him into a rematch, don't forget to add Isaac Cruz.
Most commonly referred to as "Pitbull," Cruz is the 24-year-old Mexican brawler who fought Davis late in 2021 and became the first man in more than seven years to last the distance with him, ultimately dropping a unanimous decision that was far closer than expected.
The unheralded Cruz naturally called for a rematch right away and has maintained that desire through two subsequent fights—won by KOs in seven total rounds—which has made him prime conversation fodder for Romero as they jockey for the pay-per-view star's attention.
Davis himself went to Twitter (h/t Boxing News 24) to suggest the match, and Romero's trainer, Cromwell Gordon, told Boxing Scene that he'd welcome the proposition too:
"Pitbull is a willing and able opponent. I think that's a good fight. I think it's a very, very good fight. I think it would sell as well. He'll be an easier fight than (Davis) because you're gonna stand there and go toe-to-toe. Rolly's hitting harder than these guys. If you're standing in front of Rolly you're just a punching bag."
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Boxing being boxing, we had to get to the word "mandatory" at some point.
Had the planned-upon match between Romero and Puello gone off as scheduled, Barroso would have been the next fight for the new/still champion based on his standing as the WBA's mandatory challenger and No. 1 contender.
Given Puello's removal and Barroso's immediate elevation to title-fight participant, the mandatory tag falls to No. 2 man Ohara Davies, a 31-year-old Londoner with 18 KOs in 25 wins in a pro career stretching back nine years.
None of the victories or KOs have come against particularly memorable or high-profile opponents—he's beaten four foes with sub-.500 records and 10 with at least seven losses—and his most recognizable foes, fellow Britons Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall, beat him by TKO and decision, respectively, in 15 months across 2017 and 2018.
Still, the 5'7" slugger nicknamed "Two Tanks" is apparently comfortable talking the talk. And if Romero is interested in staying in the WBA's good graces, it's a hurdle he'll have to jump.
"I have a huge opportunity, no longer need to do my talking over social media or being disrespectful to opponents at the press conference," Davies said on Twitter. "All will be done in the ring, and I will come to destroy."
