Edgar Berlanga, headlining his first Vegas card, uses the doubts as fuel

Edgar Berlanga says “it means everything” to be headlining a major Las Vegas fight card for the first time, even though he acknowledges that he will be a huge underdog in his challenge of unified super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

“Everybody in front of me is all against me, you know,” Berlanga said, looking out at the assembled media during Wednesday’s pre-fight press conference. “And you got some believers that’s out there that’s believing me. But this guy fought legends, so it’s bound to happen that people are going to say I’m going to get knocked out. People are going to say I’m not going to go to the whole 12 rounds because of who I fought [compared to Canelo’s competition]. But it was God’s plan for this to happen. And this is unbelievable.”

But if the rest of the world regards Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) as an overwhelming favorite, Berlanga is not afraid to back himself, and caused the raising of some eyebrows at Tuesday’s grand arrivals when he announced that he would win by sixth-round knockout. Asked about that prediction, Berlanga seemed almost surprised that anyone would question a fighter for believing in his chances.

“You know us boxers, right? You know I’m a knockout artist, right?” Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) asked rhetorically. “So, every fighter wants a knockout; everybody wants to knock somebody out, right? But we know that he’s a legend, and we know that we can’t go in just trying to swing for the fences on him. He’s got a great IQ, he’s intelligent, so we got to do it the right way. Sixth-round knockout – yeah, that’s what we’re going for. And if it comes, it comes. But if we got to go the whole 12, then we’ll do that. So we’re ready for everything.”

Berlanga was similarly nonplussed about Canelo’s prediction of an eighth-round knockout victory.

“You got two guys that’s coming to fight and two guys that got cannons in them hands,” he said. “So, you know, for me, it’s like: Who lands? Who’s gonna land first? Who’s gonna be the smarter man? It’s gonna be a big fight. It’s gonna be something amazing. Right now, it’s real calm. It’s the calm before the storm. The fight is already sold. We’re gonna do over a million pay-per-view buys. Make your bag and make history and become a legend.”

The clash with Alvarez is the latest in a long string of clashes in the ring between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, and Berlanga is motivated to use his meeting with the Mexican great to become the latest standard-bearer for Boricua boxing.

“Right now, Puerto Rico don’t have a face, you know,” he said. “And I feel like after this weekend I could be the face of Puerto Rico, representing the island. They’ve been wanting that for so many years. [Miguel] Cotto was the last guy to do it. And now it’s my turn.”

Despite his apparent self-confidence, Berlanga returned unbidden to the widespread skepticism about his chances, insisting that he and his team are using the doubts as motivation.

“The stuff on social media, the people out there that just talking bad about me – seeing all this stuff, it’s about proving them wrong,” explained the Brooklyn-born boxer. “It’s more fuel for me. It’s more fire in my blood and my veins to go out there and perform and be great. This is the whole point of boxing, right? To go out there and make big fights happen at this magnitude. This is the top of the mountain. It don’t get any bigger, you get what I’m saying? So now this is about me becoming great that night and putting my last name in the history books forever. This is all fuel for me.  And, you know, we gonna shine Saturday night.”

Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.