Edgar Berlanga says his game plan tonight is to box Canelo Alvarez, use feints, and be intelligent inside the ring for their fight. Berlanga states he doesn’t want to go in and start showing wild “bombs” against Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) because that’s not what Floyd Mayweather Jr. did when he schooled Canelo over a decade ago in 2013.
(Credit: Ryan Hafey & Rey Del Rio/Premier Boxing Champions)
If Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) is on the level about wanting to box Canelo like Floyd did 11 years ago, he could be throwing away his best chance of winning tonight. Berlanga has the power, youth, and massive size advantage over WBA, WBC, and WBO super middleweight champion Canelo.
He sounds loony when he talks about changing his fighting style to adopt a Mayweather-esque approach for such an important fight. If Berlanga had tested that approach in other fights to see if it works, then it might be OK to use it against Canelo. But it’s stupid for him to deviate from what got him this far in his career.
“My plan is not to go in there to throw bombs. We got to use the jab, use feints, be smart and intelligent, make him think,” said Edgar Berlanga to the Stephen Smith YouTube forum about his strategy to defeat Canelo Alvarez tonight.
“When he fought Floyd, he made him think. You can’t go in there like how Munguia did and just throw combos. Munguia’s a great fighter; he just lacked the IQ and intelligence,” said Berlanga.
Mayweather’s fight with Canelo occurred when the Mexican star was only 22 years old, fighting at a catchweight of 152 lbs. If that fight had happened when Canelo was in his prime in 2017, that version of Mayweather would have been beaten.
Floyd would have been hit with something big to the body or head, and it would have been over. It was cherry-picking 101 for ‘Money’ Mayweather. He picked Canelo at the right moment in his career and then drained him by insisting the fight occur at a catchweight.
It was sneaky of Mayweather to choose Canelo at that point in his career rather than when he was in his prime, but that was Floyd’s only shot. He wouldn’t have fought Canelo later because that would been a disaster. Besides, Mayweather aged rapidly after his win over Canelo and was over-the-hill by 2017.
Berlanga can’t do what Mayweather did because he’s not fighting a 22-year-old Canelo tonight, and the Mexican star won’t be weight-drained.
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