Rolando Romero

Rolando Florencio Romero Moreno, better known as Rolly Romero, was born on 14th October of 1995 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is a prominent professional boxer. Romero’s boxing prowess has seen him hold the World Boxing Association (WBA) super lightweight title since May 2023, and he previously held the WBA interim lightweight title from 2020 to 2021.

Romero began his professional career on December 2, 2016, with a first-round technical knockout victory against David Courtney. Over the next three years, he built an impressive 8–0 record, with all but one of those fights ending in a stoppage. His first significant competition came on November 1, 2019, when he faced Juan Carlos Cordones and won by a first-round knockout. By 2020, he had already made a name for himself by winning numerous professional fights. Some of his key career highlights include winning the vacant WBA interim lightweight title in August 2020 against Jackson Maríñez, and defending his title against Avery Sparrow in January 2021.

Despite facing some controversies and challenges, including being pulled from a bout due to sexual assault allegations, Romero’s career continued to flourish. He faced Gervonta Davis in May 2022 for the WBA (Regular) lightweight title but was knocked out in the 6th round. Unfazed, Romero moved up to light welterweight and won the WBA super lightweight title in May 2023 against Ismael Barroso in a controversial ninth-round technical knockout.

Rollie Romero fights out of an orthodox stance which he turns bladed to make himself a smaller target. While being a smaller target allows him to be less susceptible to certain punches, it comes at the detriment of limiting his offense with his right hand being further away from his opponent and his left hand unable to load up effective lead hooks. Because of this, Romero will favor using jabs and probes with his lead hand as the bladed stance brings his lead hand closer to his opponent. He will use these jabs and probes to occupy his opponents guard and shoot a right hand which will have added power due to him needing to twist his hips further to shoot it. Romero also helps set up his offense through unorthodox footwork to throw off his opponent. He will fight out of a wide stance with his feet far apart. He will do this by stepping his lead foot forward as close as he can to his opponent, but then leaning his upper body back over his rear foot to appear as though he is further away. Before he attacks, Romero will move forward by stepping his rear foot forward first, then stepping his lead foot after. This will throw off his opponents who are used to seeing the more conventional method of stepping with the lead foot forward first. From there he will launch his attacks and catch his opponents off guard because he looks further away then he really is. The lead foot determines how far you are from your opponent, so by stepping his rear foot forward, then his lead foot into punching range, then leaning back to look further away, he is already in punching range due to his lead foot and he launches forward with a combination. Even if opponents react in time and try to step away to avoid his attack, Romero is exceptional at chasing them down with a shifting jab at the end of his combination to cover long distances.