By Declan Taylor
ON A rest day at his training camp 8,000 feet above sea level in the mountains on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, Edgar Berlanga is growing increasingly animated.
The 27-year-old has not long settled back into camp life following the press tour to officially launch his September 14 showdown with Saul Alvarez in Las Vegas. Put simply, in his own words, “it’s the biggest fight of my life”.
When Boxing News spoke to Berlanga last time out, before he dismissed Padraig McCrory in six rounds at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, he had predicted that a spectacular performance against the Northern Irishman would unlock the Canelo fight. It felt like he was speaking more in hope than expectation but, as it proved, he was bang on the money.
His prediction this time is that Canelo, now 34, will not last much longer than McCrory did. For Berlanga, once the owner of a 16-0 record with all wins coming inside the first round, there is no chance that the Mexican can live with his power.
Berlanga is unbeaten in 22 starts (Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom.
However, it is put to Berlanga that many opponents have suggested the same. It is hard to dispute that over the course of his 65 professional fights, even against some of his generation’s most devastating punchers in Gennady Golovkin and Sergey Kovalev, Canelo has rarely been properly hurt. Even in his defeats to Floyd Mayweather and Dmitri Bivol, the Mexican never really looked like getting stopped. You could argue that you have to go back to May 2010, when he fought Jose Miguel Cotto, for the last time he had a genuine crisis.
Berlanga bristles. It takes a lot to elicit a reaction from the Brooklyn native, cool as a cucumber and composure personified. Just don’t suggest that stopping Canelo might be a tall order.
“I know he hasn’t faced a puncher like me,” Berlanga starts. “And like I told him in the press conference, I don’t punch like Triple G or anyone else – these are smaller guys. Triple G is only a little dude.
“He fought a weight-drained Kovalev, touched him with a hook and it looked like he was paralysed. He didn’t fight the Kovalev who fought Andre Ward or the one who was knocking people out with his jab. He weight-drained him. He fought James Kirkland, too, another little guy.
“I’m a big guy, a natural super-middleweight if not light-heavyweight. I knock heavyweights out in the gym sparring. I hurt big guys. I know he’s never felt someone who punches like me”
Berlanga, by now in full flow, raises his fists to his chin. “And the difference between me and him is that I know what I’m getting. I know he’s going to hit me, I know I’ll get them on the chin, on the arms, in the body. In my head, I understand that, I know I’ll get hit but I’ve got to respond.
“He’s going in there sleeping on me. He thinks I don’t punch. He thinks because he’s Canelo, he’s a Mexican, he will get touched and keep walking forward but that’s not going to happen. He fought Jaime Munguia, a little guy.
“The same reason he doesn’t want to fight Benavidez, because he comes in 20lbs over, I come in 20lb over too. I’m just as big as Benavidez, I’m a big boy and I could fight at light-heavy if I want to. I could fight at cruiserweight, too, and my power would hang with them. I’ve touched heavyweights and cruiserweights and put them to sleep.
“He said he’s going to hit me, I know. Come on, hit me. I know you’re going to hit me but are you ready for what I’ve got for you? We’ve got to find out September 14. The way he’s talking, he thinks it’s going to be a walk in the park but we will see on the night.”
Berlanga’s bullish attitude might also be partly due to the general reaction to this encounter, which was only announced around six weeks out from fight night and has since been hammered by certain sections of social media. David Benavidez, David Morrell and Oscar De La Hoya, for instance, were three of boxing’s big names lining up to have a pop at the matchmaking. So has Berlanga been using the reaction for motivation?
“Yeah,” he replies. “De La Hoya said some crazy stuff and I went back at him but I just started laughing. Like, fuck it, we’re making each other famous. The more Benavidez talks shit about me, I talk shit about him, Morrell and De La Hoya the same. We are making each other famous, we are giving each other clout. It’s more promotion for us, we’re getting each other more rich when it’s all said and done. Shout out to De La Hoya, man.
“I’m not surprised. Especially not with Benavidez because he’s a fighter and he will want to go back and forth. We were in the same weight division and he could still come down to 168 so it’s a fight that could still happen in the future. What shocked me was with Oscar, how he came out and ranting. Whatever his beef with Canelo, he then wanted to bring me up.
“Meanwhile, he flew in last year to come and sit down to talk to me to try and sign me. He was telling me I’m the face of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico loves you – he was saying all this. Now he wants to go and say I’m not a real Puerto Rican, that I’m from New York and that people from Puerto Rico don’t really like me. Bro, you were just in my face telling me all this stuff. He said we could make the Canelo and Munguia fight happen – Puerto Rico vs Mexico.
“Now he’s talking like that. You know why? Because he’s not involved. And when he’s not involved, he’s being a hater.”
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JUNE 15: David Benavidez stands in the ring after a fight for an interim WBC light heavyweight title against Oleksandr Gvozdyk at MGM Grand Garden Arena on June 15, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Benavidez won the title by unanimous decision. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)
As Berlanga speaks, there is the occasional interruption from his three-year-old son, Chosen, who has made a flying visit along with his mother, Berlanga’s wife, to training camp.
“I saw them in New York for the press conference and that was the first time I’d seen them for two months,” he says. “Now I flew them out quick.
“My son was going crazy when I left New York for LA – ‘daddy, daddy, daddy’. I felt bad so I flew them up here for a few days then I’ll send them back. I’m locked in now, it’s a gladiator sport and you know what they say, the girls can make you weak, man.
“They’ll be here for a couple more days then I’ll fly them back and I’ll probably see them in fight week and stuff.”
What the kid has done is provide his father with some much-needed perspective as he approaches the craziest fight week of his career. Once concerned mainly by jewelry and footwear, the 27-year-old is now driven by the need to provide.
“I don’t think he realises what’s going on,” Berlanga says of his son. “But I know for a fact that I’m like his idol. He copies everything I do. They got into town yesterday and he came to the gym from the airport.
“He ran in the ring, jumped on the ropes. He jumps on the ropes, bangs his chest and holds his finger up to the camera. Right now, I’ve got a day off because I’ve done 10 days straight. But he’s like ‘daddy, gym, gym, gym’. He loves the gym
“But I don’t want him to be a boxer. I want him to be a baseball player. Or he loves music too so let’s see.”
At three years old, Chosen has no idea of the magnitude of this event but Berlanga is driven by the idea that one day he might.
“It’s amazing really,” says the dad-of-one. “I’m happy because it’s a great feeling that he can look back on all this. I look at him every day and he just makes me go harder. Knowing that he needs someone to lean on, he’s still young and I’ve got to pave the way for him. It’s an amazing feeling, man. I’m happy and I’m excited to have someone who really looks up to me. Everything I do, he wants to do.
“I wish he was a little bit older, like five or six, so he could really understand what’s going on because this is the biggest fight of 2024 and the biggest fight of my life. If he was a little bit older he would really understand ‘damn, my dad is fighting Canelo’. But he’s just going with the flow, that’s my dad, he’s a star, he’s up there.
“I’m excited though and this is just the start. A lot of doors will be opening up after this fight so we’re just locked in. I want to create a legacy for myself, my last name and really put Puerto Rico on the map.”
