Berlanga Says He Is Ready For Canelo – ‘He Can’t Slip Up, I’m Dangerous’
Edgar Berlanga says he is ready to shock the world when he takes on Canelo Alvarez.
Berlanga takes on Canelo on September 14 during Mexican Independence Weekend, aiming to become only the third man to beat the super middleweight. He is 22-0 with 17 knockouts, showing he can stop fighters inside the distance. His last bout was a stoppage win against Padraig McCrory. However, Berlanga has only had one knockout in his last six fights.
The pressure is more on Canelo since he has been facing criticism for not facing the best boxers of late. His refusal to fight David Benavidez unless he received $200 million received mass backlash. The move was seen as a way of pricing himself out. He has also been linked with the Terence Crawford fight when a Cristian Mbilli bout at 168 is more competitive. Berlanga could use that criticism to put Canelo under pressure.
“People tend to say, ‘Berlanga isn’t ready for this moment,’ but I have been ready. He [Canelo] can’t slip up because I’m dangerous just like he’s dangerous. I’m dangerous, too. We’re minimizing a lot of the mistakes going into September 14th that he can execute on them. I’m coming to fight. This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” Berlanga said
However, this is Berlanga’s first title shot. He will face a pro-Mexican crowd even if he has the Puerto Rican fans behind him. He has also fired up Canelo with his trash talk. He annoyed Alvarez when they butted heads at the kick-off presser. Berlanga became unhappy that Canelo was interrupting him while he was speaking. Both boxers stood up as they almost squared off, only for the security to calm things down. Canelo promised to make Berlanga pay, while the latter later stated he would stop Canelo.
Middleweight boxer Kyrone Davis felt Berlanga made a mistake by talking trash. Caleb Plant did something similar when he faced Canelo in 2021. He attempted to slap Canelo, but he missed, and Alvarez hit back with a counter during their face-off.
Plant suffered a cut under his eye, but the fight still went ahead as normal. Despite Plant boxing well during the first half of the fight, he never had the power to earn Canelo’s respect. Alvarez walked down Plant and stopped him in round 11. Davis felt getting Canelo angry would only make the Mexican train harder, which would backfire on Berlanga.
“I think the best shot that he had was keeping Canelo sleeping, and Canelo’s not training as hard. I think that kind of woke him up, and I think that probably is not going to be good for him. A mad Canelo is a focused Canelo. Some guys don’t fight good angry. He fights good angry. I think that he’s going to be in trouble. Six-round knockout. Either or [systematic breakdown or clean shot],” Davis stated
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