Shakur Stevenson has poured cold water on any talk that Ryan Garcia’s upset loss to Rolando “Rolly” Romero on May 2 was a mere off-night. Speaking on DAZN, the unbeaten lightweight dissected the Times Square headliner and concluded that Garcia simply didn’t prepare. “I don’t think he trained. I don’t think there was a camp that got him ready,” Stevenson said, adding that whatever work was done “wasn’t a good one, and it wasn’t a lot of time.”
The nine-round snoozer ended with scorecards of 118-109 and two tallies of 115-112 - wide reflections of Garcia’s inertia after a second-round knockdown. According to Stevenson, the Californian turned gun-shy and never adjusted to Romero’s crude but heavy artillery. “Devin and Teo at least looked like they trained,” Stevenson noted, implying Garcia’s conditioning paled in comparison to fellow May 2 undercarders Devin Haney and Teófimo Lopez.
Size was another invisible opponent. After rehydrating, Romero “looked like a junior-middleweight,” while Garcia appeared undersized despite his own frame. Matchmakers who banked on Garcia’s 2024 stoppage of Devin Haney may have misjudged how he would cope with a puncher 13 months later - and with 13 months of ring rust.
Stevenson’s verdict is unflinching: Garcia’s camp failed him long before the first bell. If the 26-year-old wants future marquee nights, he’ll need a real training camp, not just the hype of one. As Stevenson put it, talent without preparation is “kryptonite”.
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