By Brian Webber: Edgar Berlanga’s former trainer Andre Rozier thinks he needs to put the brakes on his goal of fighting former WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia next.
Rozier doesn’t need to worry about Berlanga not being ready for Munguia because that fight is NOT happening. Golden Boy has bigger plans for Munguia, aiming to match him against David Benavidez next.
That’s a much bigger fight than Munguiaa fighting the 26-year-old Berlanga, a fighter only popular in New York.
Edgar’s options limited
Berlanga’s promoter Eddie Hearn threw out Gennadiy Golovkin, Billy Joe Saunders, and John Ryder’s names as possible options for his next fight.
Unfortunately, there’s no chance of Golovkin & Saunders taking the fight with Berlanga, leaving Ryder. That guy might be a little too good for Berlanga, who gets frustrated when he gets hit and is unable to knock out his opposition.
We don’t want to see Berlanga getting angry and biting Ryder or hitting him with repeated low blows. Berlanga nailed Quigley with quite a few shots below the belt last Saturday night, and you got to wonder if that was a sign of frustration on his part.
Like a lot of people, Rozier didn’t like what he saw from the unbeaten super middleweight contender Berlanga (21-0, 16 KOs) last Saturday night against the 32-year-old Ireland native Jason Quigley at the Hula Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.
What was supposed to be a showcase fight to make Berlanga look good to create a demand for a fight between him and Canelo Alvarez was almost a disaster for the recently inked Matchroom fighter, with him losing many of the middle rounds against the highly skilled Quigley.
Berlang caught a huge break with a bogus knockdown in the fifth, with the referee Harvey Dock giving him credit for dropping Quigley after the Irish fighter tripped.
That was one of two blown calls by the referee, who had a dreadful night. Berlanga pressed on Quigley’s head in the twelfth to force him to the canvas. Shockingly, the referee ruled it a knockdown. It’s unclear if Dock’s view was partially blocked from the action because it was so evident that Berlanga pushed Quigley down.
Luckily for Dock, the two-blown calls didn’t change the outcome of the fight because Berlanga was going to win anyway, but you don’t like to see a ref blowing two calls in one fight, primarily when it benefits the A-side home fighter.
Berlanga not ready for Munguia
“It’s going to be a tough fight. It’s two young bulls coming at each other. Edgar is going to have to pick up his punch count because Jaime throws a lot of punches, and if he’s not accurate is one thing, but he stays busy with it,” said trainer Andre Rozier to Themistode about whether Edgar Berlanga is ready for Jaime Munguia.
“So, Edgar would have to pick up his punch count and keep his defense paramount and not get caught with shots because the kid [Munguia] is strong too.
“I think he [Berlanga] needs one more, and then he can rock. He needs to get the rest of the rust out of his system, and then, I think, he’ll be able to contender.
“I thought he showed ring rust. He needs to get that out of his system, and he needs to pick up the pace a little bit,” said Rozier when asked about his thoughts on Berlanga’s performance against Jason Quigley last Saturday night in New York.
“It’s hard to judge him on a year of inactivity. So I’m going to have to give him a pass. He did win almost every round, and he had the knockdowns working for him, but I thought he should have gotten him out of there one step at a time.
“Maybe that’s one of the problems because he’s being professed to knock people out instead of getting people in trouble. Once he does that, I think everything will be okay.
“I was a bit, but then again, a scared man is a practical man, and Quigley was definitely on his Ps and Qs, not trying to get hit with a big shot after the big shot that he did receive in the early rounds,” said Rozier.
