Zander Zayas says Edgar Berlanga needs to use his power to have a chance to upset unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on September 14 in Las Vegas.
Unbeaten 154-lb contender Zayas believes Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) has a chance to win if he can catch the more experienced Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) “sleeping” and hit him with ‘ can nail a big shot. However, it will not be easy for the 27-year-old Berlanga to do, as he has not competed against this level of fighter during his eight-year professional career.
A battle for profit
Berlanga’s management deliberately kept him in the shallows, away from the predatory sharks that would have devoured him long ago and exposed him as a fake.
The New Yorker’s management slowly built him up against minor league fighters to create a dazzling 22-0 record, but without any substance.
Berlanga is a classic example of a fighter designed for cash-out purposes to take advantage of his fanbase in Brooklyn and other parts of New York City, who are looking for a replacement for Miguel Cotto or Felix Trinidad.
Berlanga is obviously not that guy, but his fans in NYC naively hope he is. In a perfect world, Berlanga would have been forced to earn a shot against Canelo by fighting David Morrell or David Benavidez because the rest of the world would have accepted him as deserving of this opportunity.
That’s not happening here, and this fight, if you want to call it that, is a match designed solely to make money, but has no real sporting value.
Berlanga needs to start fast
“Force. He’s going to have to catch Canelo napping somehow. Catch him pulling out or diving in or something,” Xander Zayas tells the Sean Zittel YouTube channel, on what Edgar Berlanga needs to do to upset unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on September 14.
Berlanga needs to boomjack Canelo, throw non-stop power punches in the first two rounds and pray that he can catch him with a big shot. After two rounds, Berlanga will be tired and slowly chipped away by Canelo and likely knocked out by the sixth. Hopefully Berlanga won’t decide to bite Canelo if things look bleak.
“Catch him with a backhand or a hook because it’s hard when you’re facing someone like Canelo Alvarez,” Xander said of what Berlanga should do. “It’s hard to maintain that for 12 rounds. We’ve seen people do it. We saw Caleb Plant outbox Canelo for a few rounds.”
“We’ve seen Kovalev do it for a few rounds, but once that experience comes in and that dog kicks in, it’s like, Okay, now that’s on offer.’ The only guy to do that in recent years is (WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry) Bivol, and that was a 175-pound bigger guy.
Berlanga is not the only level of Plant or even the faded version of Sergey Kovalev that Canelo fought many years ago. He can’t do what those guys did against Canelo because he’s not as talented as them.
One-Punch Knockout the Only Hope
Really, the only hope Berlanga has is if he can jump on Canelo right away in the first round and land one of his big shots on the top of his head to score a knockout. Sixteen of Berlanga’s knockouts came in the first round, but the opposition was taxi driver level, and it was pathetic that his promoters at Top Rank treated him like that. It wasn’t fair to the public to create that kind of fighter and then put him in main events on their cards on ESPN.
“Canelo feels comfortable at 168, and it’s going to be a tough fight for Berlanga,” says Zayas. “But then again, a lot of people said the same thing about Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia. Look what happened. I feel like it’s boxing. Anything can happen, and you’re wearing 10-oz gloves. These are some big guys, and if somebody gets touched, you go to sleep.”
Berlanga is not on the level of Ryan Garcia, and Canelo is not Devin Haney, a fighter with no power and a fragile chin who was never a super talent. Ryan is a much better fighter than Berlanga and comes from a successful amateur background. Berlanga was never that kind of fighter, so Zayas’ comparison makes no sense.
“I do see a hard fight for Berlanga, and Canelo will get the win, but all my respect to him and his team who took the fight and made it happen,” says Zayas.
