Energetic Canelo to “destroy” Berlanga, says Hopkins

Bernard Hopkins says Edgar Berlanga “powered” Canelo Alvarez to destroy him on September 14.

Canelo’s initial intent: a “Beat Up,” not a destruction

Hopkins feels that superstar Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) is originally just going to “beat” him and allow him to fight another day to enjoy his career, but with all the trash New Yorker Berlanga (22 ) -0, 17 KOs) talked about, Alvarez is going to leave him in bad shape.

WBA, WBC and WBO Super Middleweight Champion Canelo Alvarez will defend against #1 WBA Mandatory Berlanga on September 14th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The event will be shown live on DAZN PPV, priced at $89.99.

Berlanga (27) apparently had a problem hearing that Canelo would initially show him mercy. He feels it’s a sign of weakness on his part because that’s not how he fights. Berlanga shows no mercy to his opponents, and it has to be believed. His 16 knockouts in the first round are proof that he is not bent on showing weakness.

Berlanga’s Trash Talk: Fuel to the Fire

“Canelo gets the knockout in six or seven rounds,” Bernard Hopkins told the mediapredicting a knockout victory for Canelo Alvarez over Edgar Berlanga on September 14th. “Sure, and that’s why he’ll get knocked out,” Hopkins said when told Berlanga was predicting a knockout over Canelo.

If Berlanga wasn’t focused on getting a knockout, Canelo would have stopped him sooner or later anyway. So it is better that he take the fight to himself and go out on his shield. At least if he fights like this, he has a slim chance of winning if he can catch him early like he did with his last opponent, Padraig McCrory, on February 24th.

“He must come to the fire. I’m going with Canelo. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Anything can happen, right? But if you ask me who I’d go for if I had to put money down, Canelo all day,” says Hopkins.

“You know what’s the worst thing he (Berlanga) did to Canelo? He urged him to destroy him. You know, sometimes you keep your mouth shut, and the guy doesn’t hit you that bad. He leaves you with a career to fight another battle one day. He blew it. Canelo took that off the table,” Hopkins said.

Berlanga is trying to sell the fight to make the most money possible. With the event priced at $89.99 on PPV, this will turn off many fans, and it likely won’t bring many buys. This makes it more important for Berlanga to talk trash to push up the buy rate to make more money on the PPV upside.

“It’s not even personal. He just wants to show himself now. “I was just going to hit you and get my $30 million, but now I’m going to (waste you),” Hopkins says.

Canelo will have to be careful as Berlanga hits hard and is similar in size to David Benavidez, a fighter Alvarez never showed interest in fighting. Berlanga probably hits harder than Benavidez, but he lacks his combination of punches, hand speed and chin.