Ryan Garcia’s world title win has the boxing world talking about a potential grudge rematch with Devin Haney, but reigning WBA welterweight champion Rolando Romero does not believe it would be competitive.
Garcia dominated Mario Barrios on Saturday night to get his hands on the WBC crown at 147lbs, cruising to a statement unanimous decision victory to finally become a world champion.
That moment came almost two years after his first scheduled world title challenge, when ‘King Ry’ was supposed to fight for the WBC super-lightweight title against Haney, but missed the weight beforehand and thus lost the opportunity to win the belt.
Garcia pulled off the upset to hand Haney a first career defeat, but the result was then overturned to a no-contest when it was revealed Garcia had tested positive for performance enhancing drug Ostarine.
After serving a one-year ban, Garcia would then lose to Romero in a second bid for a belt. Speaking to K.O. Artist Sports following Garcia’s win, ‘Rolly’ said that Garcia is ‘scared’ to rematch him, after witnessing the Californian call out Shakur Stevenson in his post-fight interview.
“That dude is scared of me, you can’t tell?”
Despite the Stevenson call-out, anticipation is beginning to build for a fierce rematch with Haney, now a unification since the latter beat Brian Norman Jr for the WBO welterweight title. If it happens, Romero predicts that Garcia will get the job done inside of the distance this time around.
“Bro, come on, don’t talk to me about that kind of stuff. Devin sucks.
“Of course [I want to see the Haney-Garcia rematch], I want to see Devin get knocked out.”
Haney is also being linked to a clash with former WBO lightweight world champion, Keyshawn Davis, for what would be his first outing of 2026.
