By Sean Jones: Edgar Berlanga believes he’s going to “1000%” send Canelo Alvarez into retirement when he faces him after his warm-up fight against Jason Quigley on June 24th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
A fight against undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo is virtually assured for the highly ranked 26-year-old contender Berlanga (20-0, 16 KOs), provided he wins his scheduled twelve round fight against the 32-year-old Ireland native Quigley (20-2, 14 KOs).
If Berlanga gets through his fight with Quigley with flying colors, we could see him in with Canelo by September.
It doesn’t appear Canelo will be fighting Dmitry Bivol next because there’s reportedly been no contact between the management of the Mexican star and Bivol’s handlers.
With just three months to go before September, it’s clear Canelo won’t be fighting Bivol and isn’t interested in avenging his loss.
Given that the New York native Berlanga has been out of the ring for an entire year since attempting to bite Roamer Alexis Angulo in June 2022, it’s difficult to predict how he’ll perform.
What we know from watching that fight was Berlanga struggled and appeared to lose his cool in that fight because he was getting hit a lot by Angulo.
Quigley was knocked out in two rounds by Demetrius Andrade in 2021. Last April, Quigley returned to the ring and defeated journeyman Gabor Gorbics by a 10 round points decision.
Berlanga will probably need a knockout if Berlanga intends to retire Canelo because he’s likely to win if the fight goes to the cards. We saw how Bivol barely edged Canelo on the scorecards last year despite schooling him for 12 rounds.
“A thousand percent. I feel like I’m back,” said Edgar Berlangaa to Fight Hub TV when asked if he thinks he can retire Canelo Alvarez. “People are going to see on the 24th. I’m back; I’m back to myself.
“The whole last year me taking off, I felt like, you know, I was in a stage of depression because I didn’t have a trainer. I didn’t have no gyms to go to.
“I know I could beat the best, and I know everything is written. For me to beat Canelo and become the first male undisputed world champion to come out of Puerto Rico, that’s going to be something amazing. That’s something on my mind as well, making history and just being great.
“I don’t want to overstep Quigley and just think about Canelo because on the 24th, I have an opposition that I have to destroy. So my main focus is Quigley. I know the Canelo fight is on the verge of coming true. It’s there already.
“If I don’t perform, if I don’t make a statement, if I don’t show the new and improved Edgar Berlanga, nothing will happen unless I perform on the 24th.
“That was one of the goals I had when I sat down and signed with Eddie Hearn, and Matchroom was getting that fight and getting my feet wet again back home with an impressive win,” said Berlanga about fighting Canelo.
