By BRIAN MAHONEY AP Sports Writer
NEW YORK — Ryan Garcia arrived in Times Square in a Batmobile, hoping to look like a superhero in his return to boxing.
Minutes later, he was hurt and on the canvas, looking up at the billboards and bright lights on the marquees surrounding the ring after being knocked down by Rolando “Rolly” Romero’s crushing left hand in the second round.
Wham! Pow!
Romero went on to beat Garcia by unanimous decision Friday night, a surprising finish to a night of boxing like none other.
Garcia praised Romero and his power, but he was perhaps done in just as much by the event itself. Even a Batmobile is slow in Manhattan traffic, and Garcia didn’t realize it would take so long to get from the hotel to the venue after he had warmed up.
Once he got there, he noticed there were so few fans with seats near the arena that there was no crowd push that the fan favorite needed.
“I wasn’t a fan of that at all. It felt like a sparring match,” Garcia said. “You could hear everybody and it just didn’t feel authentic to me, but no excuses.”
Times Square was the setting for Garcia’s first fight since he was suspended for a year after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs in his victory over Devin Haney that was later overturned and ruled a no contest.
The plan was for Garcia and Haney to move on to a rematch if they both won Friday, but only Haney (32-0) held up his end of the bargain.
He beat Jose Ramirez (29-3) by unanimous decision in a matchup of former 140-pound champions, after Teofimo Lopez defended his junior welterweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Arnold Barboza Jr.
On a night that saw ring girls replaced by impersonators of celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Hulk Hogan and Michael Jackson, a couple of people wearing Elmo costumes and a drummer playing – standard sights and sounds in Times Square on a Friday night – Romero (17-2) ended up as the star of the show.
Although Garcia didn’t appear hurt, the early knockdown altered the course of the fight as he went from eager to timid for the rest of the fight. Neither fighter seemed to be interested in letting his hands go, with a combined 123 punches landed out of a total of 490 punches thrown. The output was the third-lowest in CompuBox history for a 12-round fight, even below the 503 punches Haney and Jose Ramirez combined to throw in the co-main event.
Romero seemed to gain more confidence in the later rounds, letting more hard shots go as it become clear Garcia (24-2) didn’t seem capable of stopping him. He won 115-112 on two cards and the other judge scored it 118-109.
“He fought a good fight,” Garcia said afterward. “He caught me early. No excuses, man. Congrats to him. He did a great job, and that’s it.”
Romero, who was knocked out by Gervonta Davis in a previous title shot in New York, didn’t argue that he should now take Garcia’s place against Haney.
“Man, I ain’t even thinking about what’s next,” he said. “I think Devin and Ryan should get their rematch and make a big one.”
The Garcia who knocked Haney down three times was nowhere to be seen in Times Square – which will undoubtedly lead to questions about how much the drugs affected that performance last April 20.
“I just think that whole year took a lot off my body physically and mentally,” Garcia said.
Haney and Lopez looked like themselves. So much going on around them looked nothing like a normal big-fight night.
Fighters were delivered from the hotel a couple of blocks away by cars, with Lopez arriving in a traditional yellow taxicab and Garcia coming in Batman’s vehicle. The cars had to stop at traffic lights in between before pulling up outside the ring for the fighters to take a shortened ring walk.
Lopez, a Brooklyn product who has fought in title bouts in Madison Square Garden, put on a strong performance in a venue unlike the famed arena 10 blocks to the south.
He improved to 22-1, celebrating in front of his hometown fans and a crowd that included fellow boxers Mike Tyson, Terence Crawford and Shakur Stevenson, and New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, with his arms raised in the shadows of the pole from where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve in New York’s tourist center.
Turki Alalshikh, the head of Riyadh Season and the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, wanted something unique for Ring Magazine’s first boxing card in the U.S. after purchasing it last year.
Thus began the plan to fight in Times Square, bypassing Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center for the trip to New York.
Seventh Avenue remained open to traffic – with cars being held only briefly when the fighters’ cars crossed over – with orange fencing blocking the view of fans standing across the street wondering what was happening inside.
Those who did have ringside access – and it was unclear how many did or how they got it, though it wasn’t a large number – could pass the time between bouts reading the ticker that scrolled along the outside of ABC’s Times Square studios just above the ring.
“It wasn’t as big as I expected it to get,” Lopez said of his bout, before adding it felt bigger as the night went on.
Plans for a Garcia-Haney rematch might still be in place, as a contract was reportedly signed ahead of Friday night for a clash later this year. However, due to how their fights played out, it will be interesting to see if that bout materializes later this year or if Al-Sheikh decides to go in another direction for both fighters.
