Berlanga To Fight Next In Puerto Rico

Edgar Berlanga is a Puerto Rican native but resides in Brooklyn as he was born in New York. The twenty seven year old had his first three professional bouts in Mexico.

 His fourth bout, however, against Christopher Salerno took place Stateside in Orlando, Florida in March 2017.

  But it looks like " The Chosen One " wants to connect with his roots.

Promoter Eddie Hearn says Edgar Berlanga could return in February for a fight in New York or his father’s home country of Puerto Rico. Hearn hinted at a tune-up for Berlanga (22-1, 17 KOs) to get him back to his winning ways after losing to unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez last Saturday. 

   In an interview last Saturday, he said he wants to fight for the IBF super middleweight title next and then face Canelo for the undisputed championship next year. If Berlanga sticks with that plan, he could face the winner of the William Scull vs. Vladimir Shishkin fight for the IBF title. 

   Hearn didn’t mention wanting Berlanga to fight for the IBF title. Hearn’s plan appears to be focused on Berlanga taking a tune-up in February and then facing one of these four names: Jaime Munguia Caleb Plant Jermall Charlo Diego Pacheco Of those names, Berlanga would likely be more interested in fighting Munguia because he’s arguably more popular than the others. Jermall used to be a top fighter but has let his career slide by being inactive. Former IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant has a poor record of 2-2 in his last four fights and looked mediocre last Saturday night, getting dropped and hurt multiple times in his fight against fringe contender Trevor McCumby. “Come back, have a good fight at 168, and then all of those names are available: Munguia, Plant, Pacheco, Charlo.,” said Hearn about his plans for Berlanga.

Berlanga Needs the old Formula If Hearn wants to get the most mileage out of Berlanga’s career to rebuild him as a marketing product to make money, he shouldn’t match him against Pacheco, Charlo, Plant, or Munguia. Berlanga would likely lose to all four of those fighters, and the money that he brings in for his fights would dry up overnight. Hearn should go back to the formula that got Berlanga this far by matching him against sublevel ham & eggers and ramp him up for another cash-out type of fight. Even with Berlanga’s massive 190+ cruiserweight size, he would likely lose to the four fighters that Hearn wants to fight. Berlanga isn’t good enough to beat those types of fighters. Given that Berlanga appeared to lose every round of his fight against Canelo, staging his next fight in Puerto Rico, as if he’s coming off a win, would be bizarre. It would make more sense for Berlanga to return home to New York, where he was born and raised, rather than fighting in his parent’s home country of Puerto Rico, treating his one-sided loss to Canelo like a fake victory. That would be weird.

 All said and done, a fight in Puerto Rico would do a world of good to Berlanga’s career and image as boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya was seen ranting on social media; questioning how genuine Berlanga’s links to Puerto Rico was.

 By Samuel Opoku Amoah