Devin Haney is suddenly no closer to a fight with Ryan Garcia than was the case three years ago when they were directly in each other’s path.

As BoxingScene.com previously reported, talks for a WBC junior welterweight title fight later this spring suddenly collapsed when Garcia opted to instead revisit plans to face Rolando Romero. The social media drop Saturday on X.

“I’ve notified my team I’m going a different route,” Garcia posted Saturday morning. “My intent now is to fight Rolando Romero.”

The news came as a surprise to many, though merely the latest disappointment to his intended target who has grown familiar with the process.

“Don’t ever mention my name, pussy boi,” Haney said in response to Garcia’s update that he broke off talks.

Haney (31-0, 15KOs) planned to make the first defense of his WBC 140-pound title versus Garcia in what would have provided the sport with an attractive matchup in the first quarter of the year.

Garcia (24-1, 20KOs) was eager to pursue the fight shortly after his eighth-round knockout of Oscar Duarte atop a December 2 DAZN show from Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. Haney became a two-division titlist one week later after a twelve-round shutout of Regis Progais in his birth town of San Francisco, California.

Both parties confirmed later in the month that talks were underway. Everyone involved seemed confident in the progress. In fact, Oscar De La Hoya, Garcia’s promoter and a Hall of Fame former six-division champion, told Boxing Scene and other reporters as recently as Friday that he was optimistic about the prospects of Golden Boy Promotions hosting such a fight in early spring.

Haney is now left to search for his own next option as Garcia believes there is ground to reignite a conversation with Las Vegas’ Romero (15-1, 13KOs), who is suddenly confident of that fight happening next.

“Spring 2024,” Romero tweeted shortly after Garcia went public with his claim.

Romero currently holds the WBA junior welterweight title. However, he is on the hook to next face the winner of the Ohara Davies-Ismael Barroso interim WBA title fight which takes place Saturday at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Failure to honor the order would result in his being stripped of the title, absent the Davies-Barroso winner agreeing to step aside.

A fight between Garcia and Romero would carry enough clout to where a belt wouldn’t necessarily need to be at stake. Garcia still proceeded with last April’s super fight versus Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, which was fought at a maximum contracted weight of 136 pounds. Davis’ WBA lightweight title was not at stake in their high-profile fight, which Baltimore’s Davis (29-0, 27KOs) won via seventh-round knockout.

Haney is now left to explore other options for his first fight of 2024. The development is reminiscent of the earlier stages of his WBC lightweight title reign. H

He was ringside (and seated next to this reporter) for Garcia’s off-the-canvas, knockout win of Luke Campbell to win the interim WBC lightweight title atop a January 2021 DAZN show from American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.

The logical next step was to order a Haney-Garcia title consolidation bout, but Garcia went in a different direction—though it never resulted in another fight on the year. He withdrew from planned DAZN headliners that July and November and didn’t resurface until April 2022.

By that time, Haney already embarked upon what has become one of the sport’s strongest runs among active top fighters. He claimed wins over former titlists Jorge Linares and Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz to fill up his 2021 campaign. It led to his pair of wins over George Kambosos in 2022, the first of which saw Haney fully unify the lightweight division.

Haney earned two more big wins in 2023, edging Vasiliy Lomachenko, albeit in a disputed 12-round decision victory last May in Las Vegas. The dominant win over Prograis last December was Haney’s best performance to date.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox