Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is all smiles these days. And, given that he’s about to make $40 million+ this coming September 14 for the boxing equivalent of an easy layup, why wouldn’t he be smiling?
Three weeks ago, at the kickoff Alvarez-Berlanga press conference in New York, the carefree Canelo mimicked beating Edgar Berlanga up with his dick and mocked that the New Yorker hit like his son. The dismissal and disregard the Mexican superstar showed for his opponent was appropriate for the level of competition he’s likely to face at the T-Mobile Arena on the 14th.
Alvarez has gone on to display that same dismissive tone throughout the lead-in to the Mexican Independence Day Weekend event. He’s not hiding the fact that he’s so much better than his upcoming opponent and that he WILL walk through him.
“C’mon bro, he’s not gonna be able to touch me,” Alvarez mocked at the Beverly Hills Hotel Alvarez-Berlanga presser. “I wanna see him try.”
“I don’t know how quick,” Canelo told TMZ on another occasion, when asked about what round he plans to end the fight. “I’m going to do my job and I’m going to try to let him feel so much pain and then knock out him.”
This has been the dismissive tone and tenor through the build-up to the pay-per-view bout.
At some point, though, the chuckling derision becomes somewhat of a self-own. As everyone knows, Canelo is most definitely his own boss these days and he’s the one who will give final say when it comes to who he fights.
If Berlanga is a hopeless patsy with no chance of winning this fight, then it was Canelo who wanted to fight a hopeless patsy with no chance of winning the fight.
Canelo essentially bragging about being able to give himself a soft touch is a real crotch shot to boxing fans being asked to pay 90 bucks for the privilege of watching that soft touch. It’s downright insulting. The guy should, at the very least, pretend that he might be in for a hard time.
Everybody has been able to pick up on Canelo’s smug dismissal. Even a not-so-bright-bulb like Berlanga has picked up on it.
“I didn’t like it when he smiled at me at the press conference,” Berlanga recently told media. “I felt like he was taking me as a joke. I know his intentions. I’m from the hood in New York. If you are smiling at my face that is disrespectful.
“…He’s just talking sh*t [saying the fight is going to be easy]. I don’t give a f**k. He knows what’s up. I looked right through him. Like Tony Montana said in the movie Scarface, ‘The eyes don’t lie, chico’. And you can see it in my eyes, I don’t fear no man.”
Delusion seems to be part of Berlanga’s bag of tools, but reality will hit him very hard on September 14. He just doesn’t have the skill set, the experience, or even the mindset to deal with any version of Saul Alvarez. Barring some wildly fortunate bolt-from-the-blue shot that just happens to catch Alvarez on the right spot at the right time, there’s no path to victory for the New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent.
Canelo knows that as well as anyone.
So, it’s only reasonable to assume, as he smugs his way through the pre-event press, that Alvarez is getting away with a fast one at the expense of event organizers and, worst of all, the fans. And he’s doing it, simply because he feels he CAN.
At least Berlanga’s getting paid for this beating. What do fans get from it?
Paul Magno has over forty years of experience in and around the sport of boxing and has had his hand in everything from officiating to training. As a writer, his work has appeared on Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports, Fight Hype, Max Boxing, Boxing.com, Inside Fights, The Queensberry Rules, Overtime Heroics, Bleacher Report, and Premier Boxing Champions. He is currently the owner and managing editor or The Boxing Tribune. You can follow his Twitter/X account, @boxing_tribune, for breaking boxing news, analysis, and sometimes NSFW commentary. For Advertising, Inquiries, etc., send him an email here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com