Teofimo Lopez understands why Ryan Garcia changed his mind about boxing Devin Haney next.

It makes better business sense, in Lopez’s opinion, for Garcia to go after another belt in a winnable bout with Rolly Romero before he tries to knock off Haney. Lopez pointed out that taking the WBA super lightweight title from Romero would give Garcia more leverage in negotiations with Haney, who dominated Regis Prograis to win the WBC 140-pound championship December 9 at Chase Center in San Francisco.

Lopez (19-1, 13 KOs), who owns the WBO junior welterweight title, also noted that Floyd Mayweather must’ve altered Garcia’s strategy for planning his next fight during the time they spent together last week.

“That’s the Mayweather effect,” Lopez told a group of reporters during the Vergil Ortiz Jr.-Fredrick Lawson card Saturday night at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. “Well, no, you gotta think about it as a business point. If he gets the world title, then he gets to balance the WBC with the WBA. You know what I mean? But if he ain’t got no belt, the Haneys are gonna say they need more [money] because they got the money belt.”

The 25-year-old Garcia surprisingly announced on social media Saturday that he wants to fight Romero next, not Haney. The Victorville, California native previously gave his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, instructions to negotiate with Haney’s handlers.

“It’s a smart move,” Lopez said. “It’s a really smart move for Ryan Garcia. I’ll say that. You know, I think that he needs something. He needs to carry a belt because it does matter. Belts do matter in the sense of percentage of what we get as our payout. I mean, but there’s ways to move around it with the pay-per-view [revenue]. Something musta happened with the Haneys. Obviously, we saw Ryan Garcia [and] Mayweather running together, so anything can happen, really. It’s part of boxing.”

Lopez suggested that Mayweather also might’ve guided Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) toward fighting North Las Vegas’ Romero, who has been promoted by Mayweather’s company, because Garcia stands a better chance of defeating Romero (15-1, 13 KOs) than knocking off Haney (31-0, 15 KOs), the former undisputed lightweight champion from Henderson, Nevada.

“I don’t wanna say that it’s influence,” Lopez said. “I think that it’s just you need guidance. That’s all it is. You just need guidance to take care of your career moving forward. You can’t continue to lose.”

One potential problem in putting together Romero-Garcia is that the WBA ordered Romero to fight the winner of the Ismael Barroso-Ohara Davies fight Saturday night by March 20.

Venezuela’s Barroso (25-4-2, 23 KOs) dropped London’s Davies twice and knocked him out in the first round of their 12-round fight for the then-vacant WBA interim super lightweight title. Davies (25-3, 18 KOs) was a 5-1 favorite to win the co-feature on the Ortiz-Lawson undercard.

Barroso wouldn’t answer questions afterward about whether he would accept step-aside money to allow Romero-Garcia before he gets his title shot. Regardless, the 40-year-old southpaw wants another shot at Romero, who scored a very controversial ninth-round, technical-knockout victory over Barroso on May 13 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

Las Vegas’ Lopez, meanwhile, is preparing to defend his WBO belt against Jamaine Ortiz (17-1-1, 8 KOs), of Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 8 at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.