B Norm Frauenheim –
LAS VEGAS — Edgar Berlanga stepped off a scale on a hot afternoon and shouted a line that could be a defining refrain for all of those who have preceded him throughout Canelo Alvarez’ long-running dominance of the boxing stage.
“I belong here, I belong,’’ he said.
But not for long.
Berlanga, who weighed in at 167.7 pounds Friday, looks like just another extra in a Canelo show that is moving into a second decade with an inexhaustible momentum, different now from what it was 10 years ago, yet still with the same result. Canelo, who was at 166.8 pounds early Friday, is in command.
These days, he’s more of a businessman, a CEO who has leverage and knows how to use it. He might not quite command the ring the way he once did with quick counters and subtle timing. But his control of everything else is as powerful as ever.
To wit: He hired Berlanga, and he’s expected to dismiss him for his first stoppage in nearly three years Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in a pay-per-view defense of his super-middleweight title. According to the acronyms, he’s not an undisputed champion.
But the difference between undisputed and unified is a pitiful irrelevancy. It’s stupid, meaningful to only the acronyms. To the fans, Canelo is still the only 168-pound champion who matters. To casual fans, he might be the only fighter they know. Not even a William Scull, who was e-mailed the International Boxing Federation (IBF) belt after that acronym stripped Canelo, could dispute that.
In terms of business, Canelo’s dominance remains unchallenged. Give the pound-for-pound crown to Naoya Inoue or Oleksandr Usyk or Terence Crawford, but the the Face of the Game? It’s still Canelo, whose influence has been evident throughout the build-up for Berlanga, an underdog whose job definition is summed up by the odds. Late Friday, his chances at winning were at 20-to-1.
In the boxing book, those odds are approaching impossible. Put it this way: The Chicago White Sox have a better chance at winning the World Series.
How Berlanga wound up with the job is controversial. Fans, rivals and pundits have mocked, dismissed and damned the fight so often that Berlanga will step through the ropes (PPV card begins at 6 p.m. PT/Amazon Prime & PPV.com) with very little to lose. If he somehow took the fight to the scorecards, the court of public opinion would judge him the winner and Canelo the loser.
But don’t bet on that. In effect, Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) has become his own matchmaker. Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) has power, yet he also moves forward, ever forward.
It’s a good guess to think he’ll stubbornly walk straight into one of those crushing Canelo counters, allowing him to silence the doubters who haven’t seen a Canelo stoppage since an 11th-round TKO of Caleb Plant in November 2021. The volatile Plant faces unbeaten Trevor McCumby on the undercard in what might be the best fight on the card.
But it’s the show that matters.
Canelo’s show.
He’s expected to emerge with big victories, first over Berlanga and perhaps another one over Dana White, the UFC chieftain who is staging his own brand of controlled violence a couple of miles of neon near away from T-Mobile at the blinking Sphere, the latest amusement addition to the Vegas skyline.
Both events are expected to do well. Projections for each live gate have been all over the board. Numbers for the UFC gate have ranged from $20 million to $27 million. Put it this way: Nobody is going home hungry. Boxing is often said to be in decline. For one night, it’ll be able to compete against the rival UFC, mostly because of one face: Canelo’s.
For boxing, the biggest news involves Canelo’s next move. Don’t expect the Berlanga fight to end in a decision. But a bigger decision awaits.
Will Canelo decide on Terence Crawford, the welterweight great in a jump up the scale to 168 pounds? Or David Benavidez in a showdown long demanded by fans? Another possibility is the winner of the Dmitry Bivol-Artur Beterbiev light-heavyweight title fight on Oct. 12 in Saudi Arabia
Canelo has talked about a rematch with Bivol, who lost a deciion to the Russian. If Bivol beats Beterbiev and Canelo decides to fight Bivol, Benavidez could get shut out by Canelo all over again.
Benavidez is the so-called mandatory challenger for the Bivol-Beterbiev winner. It’s reported that Benavidez moved to light-heavy as an option. Truth is, he had no choice. He was the World Boxing Council mandatory challenger at super middleweight. But there was no way the WBC would ever strip Canelo of its 168-pound belt. The WBC is in the Canelo business, too.
“He will find out that I’m different than anyone,’’ Canelo said of Berlanga in a message Friday that sounded a little bit like a warning to a temporary employee.
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