Canelo Alvarez, boxing’s top star, is set to defend his super middleweight title against Edgar Berlanga on September 14 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, sources told ESPN.
Alvarez, ESPN’s No. Mexico’s Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) is the undisputed champion at 168 pounds, but his IBF title may not be on the line because a fight with an IBF mandatory challenger has been delayed, sources said.
Alvarez, 34, is coming off a May decision victory over Jaime Munguia. Canelo hasn’t scored a knockout since November 2021 but has scored a knockout in each of his last three fights.
Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) is a 27-year-old from Brooklyn, New York of Puerto Rican descent. He is famous for starting his career with 16 first-round KOs. However, as the competition stiffened, Berlanga’s next five opponents kept their distance. Berlanga’s last ring action was a sixth round KO of Padraig McCrory in February.
David Benavidez has been the most common choice to fight Alvarez for years, but Canelo has shown no interest in the interim WBC super middleweight champion.
How did the Alvarez-Berlanga fight materialize? Who else is considered? Let’s take a look as Alvarez prepares for another Mexican Independence Day weekend fight:
Who else is running against Alvarez in September?
Another finalist is Chris Eubank Jr., per sources. Eubank, 34, is the son of British boxer Chris Eubank, who starred in the 1990s in England.
Eubank will also be a major underdog against Alvarez. He is coming off a 10th round TKO victory over Liam Smith last September that avenged a KO loss to Smith earlier in the year.
Eubank is also a middleweight (rated No. 4 by ESPN) and would have moved up in weight for the opportunity. While Eubank will raise interest in the UK, his name resonates less than Berlanga’s stateside.
How about Berlanga? Did he pose a threat to Alvarez?
There is nothing to suggest Berlanga, ESPN’s No. 6 super middleweight, will now be a problem for Alvarez in the ring.
Berlanga doesn’t appear to have the boxing skills to hang well, despite his good size and strength at 168 pounds. Alvarez is an expert counter-puncher who knows how to set traps for his opponents. He’s also a formidable puncher, even at 168 pounds, having won his first title at 154 in 2011.
Most importantly, Alvarez is more experienced than Berlanga. He faced almost every opponent in the last 10 years, from Floyd Mayweather to Miguel Cotto and a trio of fights with Gennadiy Golovkin.
Whatever Berlanga brings to the ring, Alvarez has seen it, and it helped him score his first KO in nearly three years.
Why won’t Alvarez face Benavidez?
Benavidez will provide a dangerous test for Alvarez, but so far, Alvarez has held almost no interest in the boxing fans most want to see. Benavidez is a big, strong volume-puncher and appears to have considerable punch resistance.
Benavidez also definitely gets a shot at Alvarez. He beat Caleb Plant and Demetrius Andrade in impressive fashion last year. Benavidez claimed Canelo avoided fighting him because he was a star of Mexican descent, and a loss meant Alvarez had passed the torch.
“I was afraid that he would lose and then I would light up,” Benavidez told ESPN in June. “… I don’t think he’s afraid of me. … I think he doesn’t like me and he doesn’t want … other Mexicans to take the rays.”
Either way, Benavidez is currently campaigning at 175 pounds because he knows an Alvarez fight isn’t on the horizon.
Who gave Alvarez to face in the superfight after what amount to stay-busy about Berlanga?
If Alvarez takes care of business against Berlanga in such a good way, there’s only one dance partner outside of Benavidez who could put on a marquee show with Alvarez: Terence Crawford.
Crawford, 36, has lobbied for a shot at Alvarez since he dismantled Errol Spence Jr. last July to win the unsputed welterweight championship. Crawford is ESPN’s No.
The jump to 154 pounds brings Crawford closer to Alvarez, but still two weight classes away. Alvarez said in May after his win over Munguia that he is not interested in fighting a small man because it is a lose-lose proposition.
But in recent months, whispers have grown louder that Alvarez will entertain such a fight next year. Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the Public Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, wants to match Crawford with Canelo.
Crawford, of course, can help the extreme case by continuing the 11-fight KO streak with another one over Madrimov, an underestimated fighter who is an athletic puncher.
Why is Alvarez-Berlanga fighting UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas?
Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev goes head-to-head with UFC 244: Nate Diaz vs. Jorge Masvidal in November 2019, and the eternal image of Alvarez and his opponent sleeping in the locker room is hard to shake because they avoided the main event. And the show is in different cities. That’s a 95-minute gap between the co-main event (Ryan Garcia vs. Romero Duno) and the moment Canelo-Kovalev kicks off.
Now, two titans of the fight game will clash in Las Vegas as Alvarez-Berlanga and UFC 306 both will land on September 14.
It’s no surprise that Alvarez is fighting on that date. Mexican Independence Day weekend has long been one of two important dates for top boxing stars (along with Cinco De Mayo weekend), a tradition held by Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya before him.
PBC will lead the event on Prime Video PPV with Matchroom Boxing involved with promoter Berlanga, sources said. The PPV will also be available on Matchroom streaming partner DAZN just like when Alvarez beat Munguia in May.
Last year the UFC pounced on the holidays before Alvarez could secure a date, and sent Noche UFC, the night fight card.
With MGM properties representing all of the top spots on the Las Vegas Strip, there was nowhere else for Alvarez to go. He even fought two weeks later and defeated Jermell Charlo at the T-Mobile Arena.
This time, it’s a different story as the UFC is holding its first live sporting event at the Sphere, a revolutionary and immersive arena owned by the Madison Square Garden Company.
The UFC has a very different audience, so it’s possible that the event will be successful. And with Alvarez’s legion of passionate fans from Mexico, it is also guaranteed to bring fans in droves to his event — even though it figures to be the key storyline all week in Las Vegas. And once again it was presented as Noche UFC.
“So, we’re going to go in there during Mexico’s Independence Day and I’m going to put on the biggest live show you’ve ever seen, and it’s going to be a huge love letter to all the fighting and combat sports in Mexican history,” White said in “The Pat McAfee Show” in February.
No fights have been officially announced for UFC 306 so far.
“I’m already $17 million into this thing and we’re nowhere in September,” White said earlier this month on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “When I tell you, I’m going to put on the biggest live sports event in the history of combat sports, probably at the time of the sport, nobody else is going to come in and spend (a lot of money).”