Edgar Berlanga, Jermall Charlo Zero In On Big-Money Canelo Alvarez Shellacking

Ask a thousand boxing fans who they want to see get next crack at unified super middleweight champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and a thousand will say David Benavidez. Ask ten thousand, and you’d probably still get 100% hoping for universal consensus top contender, Benavidez, to get his shot.

Meanwhile, absolutely nobody wants to see Canelo take on Edgar Berlanga in his next bout, except for Berlanga, his team, and, maybe, apparently, Canelo.

On Tuesday, Salvador Rodriguez of ESPN Boxeo wrote via Twitter/X that Berlanga was the leading candidate to be the Mexican superstar’s next B-side. Boxing fans felt a collective pinch in their gizzard. That was followed by a second pinch when they read, in the same post, that Jermall Charlo was the runner-up option.

If just a handful of humanity wants to see Canelo-Berlanga, even fewer want to see Canelo-Charlo. The troubled, bothered, not-right Charlo may not even want the fight at this moment. So, if Alvarez wants to fight Jermall, he may have to track him down and beat him up on his houseboat or something.

Berlanga, The Favorite to Win The Canelo Lottery?

Berlanga, however, seems like a much more realistic option…unfortunately.

“He knows I’m about to make that bag, and we’re going to beat him,” Berlanga, who is a New York native of Puerto Rican descent, said during a video interview on Cigar Talk.

“It’s legacy for me. It’s Puerto Rico vs. Mexico. Everybody keeps talking about that fight. I feel I got to get bugged out,” Berlanga blustered. “Now, I feel it’s time for me to go to that level…

“I know he fought big punchers and everybody, but I feel with me, it’s something different. I’m going to bring something different to the table.”

That “something different” may be jarring delusion and the strongest “I don’t belong here” vibe Canelo has encountered since he was a teenager beating up delivery men and construction workers at Guadalajara-area wedding halls.

“I’m Puerto Rican, I’m a superstar, I got a big backing and big following,” Berlanga recently told Boxingscene. “Yeah, I don’t got a title – I’m his [WBA] mandatory. But you gotta understand, the fan base I got is insane, and I know we’re gonna do amazing numbers on pay-per-view and it’s gonna be one for the history books. It’s Mexico versus Puerto Rico. It’s big, so we definitely gonna make some money.”

Berlanga insists that he “elevates with the competition,” but, thus far in his 8-year pro career, he’s only had to elevate as high as little-known Irishman Padraig McCrory, who he claims is the toughest opponent on his resume. Sadly, he may not be lying about that.

Originally brought up as a Top Rank prospect, Berlanga and the promotional company parted ways in early 2023. According to Berlanga, the split came over the company’s suggestion, after a few uneven performances, that he be moved down to undercards for additional developmental fights.

“They wanted me to go back down to co-main event, and obviously that was another thing. We don’t want to do that,” Berlanga told iFL TV at the time.

“I felt like I’d done my numbers. I’d fought top opposition. I’d done my thing unanimously, and I’d sold out freaking Hula Theater back to back. Who does that? No fighter is doing that.

“I knew my worth. Seeing the promoters wanting me and fighting for me now…They know what comes with wanting to sign a hot prospect or a hot contender like myself. It comes with the territory, everyone wanting to sign me…It’s a bidding war right now.”

Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing would eventually “win” that “bidding war” and sign Berlanga to a multi-fight deal. Immediately, the push for a Canelo fight began.

Eddie Hearn Pushing For Canelo-Berlanga

Hearn, who has promoted six of Canelo’s last nine fights and seems to have a good relationship with the man, feels that he has an inroad to Alvarez. He’s been beyond confident that he’ll be able to cash out on an opponent he has to know will be absolute cannon fodder for Canelo.

“I think he’ll fight Berlanga next,” Hearn told BoxingScene over the weekend.

“When you look at the options …who else is there to fight? [Canelo has] two mandatories, one is [IBF mandatory] William Scull, who I’d never heard of before in my life. With all due respect to him, I’m sure he’s a good fighter. And the other is [WBA mandatory] Edgar Berlanga, who is a Puerto Rican knockout artist. He’s fought on ESPN and DAZN. Everybody knows him, and it’s a competitive fight. So I think he’ll fight Berlanga next.”

And that brings us back to David Benavidez.

But…What About David Benavidez?

The 27-year-old former two-time world champ is, realistically, the ONLY Canelo next-fight option that makes sense from a commercial, competitive, and “just plain right” perspective. Big wins over Demetrius Andrade and Caleb Plant last year affirmed top contender status. The boxing eye test also clearly shows why the all-action Benavidez is the man to, possibly, bring Alvarez’s best fight out of him. Nobody with any real knowledge and objectivity believes that the undefeated pressure fighter is undeserving of the big opportunity. Benavidez recently moved up to light heavyweight in search of a big-fight opportunity Alvarez won’t give him at super middleweight, but insists he can make 168 again if he gets the Canelo call.

The problem is that Alvarez has taken a dislike to Benavidez and sports a real distaste when it comes to all the calls for him to fight the man. This 33-year-old version of Canelo is set on being belligerent in playing the boxing business game and using his box office leverage to call all the shots, especially when it comes to the challenges he chooses to take on.

“I don’t need to fight anybody,” Alvarez told media not too long ago. “I don’t need to prove to anybody anything…I don’t need to prove anything to anybody…It is what it is.”

Okay. But “what it is” is bullsh*t.

Since when does an athlete, still active in a sport, get to a point where he’s accomplished enough and never has to be challenged again?

As this writer put it previously, in a piece for FightHype.com:

“How f*cking absurd. That’s a bit like me saying, ‘Well, I met my deadline this week– and for the last several weeks– so, I’ve earned the right to not ever meet my deadline again. F*ck my editors!” I mean, fine…ok…but try to stay employed like that.

In the sports world, that attitude is even more absurd since, well, the whole idea of sports is wrapped up in the concept of competition.

You won’t catch the Kansas City Chiefs saying, ‘We’ve won so many Super Bowls that, this year, we’ve decided we’re only going to play Division 3 college teams– We’ve earned the right to decide who we play!’”

And to top off the injury with insult, fans will be asked to dish out upwards of 90 bucks in pay-per-view money to see a fight they don’t really want against an opponent who doesn’t really belong there. Seeing Edgar Berlanga humbled, brutally, is just not worth that kind of money.

If Berlanga or Charlo (Dear God!) is picked next, a real question has to be raised as to why, exactly, Canelo Alvarez is still in this sport, holding all the 168 lb. belts, and asking a premium price for something nobody asked for and almost nobody wants to see.

Or maybe the correct question to ask is– Why, exactly, are we still keeping such a fighter rolling in dough and holding up the flow of an entire division?