ORLANDO – Six months after sharing the ring with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez atop a massive Mexican Independence Day weekend card in Las Vegas, Edgar Berlanga returns to the ring in altogether more anonymous circumstances on Saturday, taking on Jonathan Gonzalez-Ortiz in the co-main event of a Matchroom Boxing show at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida.
And he doesn’t seem particularly happy about it.
“Ever since the beginning of November, we had a fight date for March 8, a main event at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in front of 18,000 people, and we’ve been fighting for that day for a long, long, long time,” Berlanga, 22-1 (17 KOs), told BoxingScene this week.
“But the situation with Matchroom, it was giving me contracts we didn’t like. They wanted to do an extension. We didn’t want to do that, you know. I wanted to be a free agent after my next fight, and we couldn’t agree on terms. And we wound up choosing this. I wound up picking this on my own.”
Berlanga, who on Friday weighed in 1.6 pounds above the super middleweight limit for Saturday’s scheduled 10-rounder, insisted he could easily have had a more appealing matchup than the little-known Gonzalez-Ortiz, 20-0-1 (16 KOs).
“I know I’m a star, a superstar,” he said. “I know I can make the biggest fights happen in boxing. I could have made a big, big, big fight.”
One opponent he says he wanted and could have had was William Scull, who is facing Alvarez himself in May:
“People don’t know this, but I was in his DMs. He was telling me, ‘Send your contract, I’ll sign it.’ And this was in October. I got the DMs. He said, ‘Send me the contract.’ I could have fought for the IBF title right now. But that’s what happens when you’re not your own boss, and when you don’t make your own moves, and when you leave it up to the promoter. They decide on what they want to do.”
The promoter in question, Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn, had a somewhat different take on the situation.
“Edgar’s got his own opinion of his commercial drawing power, but I think he is a star,” Hearn told BoxingScene. “When we signed the Canelo Alvarez contract with Edgar, he requested, and [Berlanga manager] Keith Connolly requested, a comeback fight. When we negotiated the comeback fight, because I don’t think the money was what he imagined, they said, ‘Well, we’ll do it, but we want it on an undercard, not a main event.’
“Now, after the Alvarez fight, we then talked about, instead of doing that little comeback fight, let’s do a fight in Puerto Rico. He wanted to fight this Namibian guy [Paulinus Ndjolonimu], and DAZN were kind of lukewarm on it. But that’s OK; off the back of Canelo, he doesn’t have to fight a killer.
“But the truth of the matter is, it was getting quite late in the day, six weeks out from the Puerto Rico date. So, what we said is, ‘Look, rather than mess around, let’s just revert to the contract.’ So, we deliver. We don’t breach. We deliver what we said. And then he landed on here, he’s on an undercard to Ammo Williams; he’s not very happy, but all we’re doing is following the contract that was set out.”
Hearn points out that in three fights with Matchroom – against Jason Quigley, Padraig McCrory, and Alvarez – Berlanga made $12 million and fought for the super middleweight championship against the sport’s biggest star.
“He should name the property he’s buying off the proceeds of those fights Matchroom Towers,” Hearn joked. “If it ends on Saturday, we’ll shake hands, and I know that we’ve followed the contract to a tee. We’ve done an amazing job for him, and I wish him all the best. I like Edgar. I think he’s a good fighter. I think he’s got star appeal as well, but it’s got to work for the business. It’s got to work for everything so, if he goes elsewhere, then good luck to him.”
Berlanga, though, sounds ready to move on.
“People are looking at me like I’m crazy. ‘Why’s that guy fighting on his card? Why is he a co-main event? He’s supposed to be fighting in a big stadium right now, with a big fight, but everything takes time,” he said.
“Mentally, I’m on a different level. I feel amazing right now. You know, I think this is my time. I feel like the fights are Jaime Munguia, Caleb Plant, Jermall Charlo: these are the fights I want to make. One of those three this year. I want to make that happen.”
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. 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.