“You could tell that he was fighting scared. Every time I reach in or throw something, he’d pull back and was running the whole fight,” said super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga after his decision win over Steve Rolls on Saturday night at MSG. “I was looking for the big shot. My corner was telling me to use the jab. I’m just happy we got the victory and I’m moving forward.
“He was a scared fighter. It’s tough to land your shots when he’s scared, especially moving back. When he fought GGG, he brought it to GGG. With me, he tried to use that running tactic.”
Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum added, “Edgar Berlanga fought a tough, defensive fighter, and he got some valuable rounds in tonight. As you saw from the sold-out crowd, the kid is a star. There are many more big nights to come.”
Interestingly, According to CompuBox, Rolls actually outpunched (447-314) and outlanded (123-120) Berlanga in the contest.
Berlanga boxed terrible vs Rolls, no head movement, no side angles, no jabs, little body work, no combinations, he just plodded in looking for a big shot without setting anything up. If Rolls had more power he could of knocked out Belanga who has awful defensive skills, Edgar needs to work on his overall boxing skills, Maybe hire Zayas trainer, go to Puerto Rico and train and stop listening to the guys in Brooklyn who are telling you your great because you knocked out 16 bums. The star tonight was Xander Zayas.!
Berlanga ,needs a better trainer .has potential to many people in his corner and needs to work on his defense big time!! Needs to work on over all skills! Good Luck Kid!!!
Great take EB fought tentative. Slow. Crowd was quiet. He truly needs a new corner. Definitely not ready for the Big Boys ! After being dropped in his last fight he just looked so sluggish. Zayas definitely was the MVP of the evening
Berlanga is VERY one dimensional and predictable. Yeah, he’s got power, but that only takes you so far. Especially when you’re as one dimensional as him. His fights are fairly close when he doesn’t score the KO. Going on three straight now without one.
Once a “dangerous” puncher is exposed, revealing that’s all they’ve got, their careers usually take a turn for the worst.
Thinking of James Kirkland with your comment…..
Yep, perfect example.
More credit needs to be given to Steve Rolls, he boxed a great fight and I actually had it 95-95. Rolls out punches Berlanga, but Berlanga is the A side, so there was hardly any talk on how good Rolls is.
I agree with Jerry. Rolls almost pulled off the upset.
I agree. I also had it 95-95. If Rolls had mixed a few more solid right hands in there, I think he could’ve won this. It also seemed like Rolls tired in the last couple of rounds. But Rolls really couldn’t miss with that jab when he threw it.
As for Berlanga, he was very ordinary. Just walked forward throwing occasional shots here and there, not really committing to anything. Berlanga called Rolls scared, but I think Berlanga was scared of getting that chin checked again and was very cautious. Berlanga has a long way to go to even be considered a fringe contender.
Looked like one fighter was scared and the other was glad. Berlanga is at best 5 years away from a title shot.
I would amend your comment to: Berlanga should wait at least 5 years before going for a title. Truth is, if his team allows it, then he could get a shot this Summer. His NABF or whatever continental he currently holds gives him a #6 World Ranking. Who knows, if Canelo vacates all the Titles, then maybe Berlanga can get the right opponent and win a “title” in his next fight.
I compared him to Munguia in another comment and if you remember he got matched up with a much smaller opponent who stood still for his bombs.
I do think Berlanga needs to reboot. He should watch Zayas’ performance and at least try to find a jab before moving up in competition.
GTFOH Berlanga is way too full of himself. This guys flatters himself way too much. The day he gets in the ring with a Benavidez he will be butchered up pretty badly.
All I ever hear from him is how hard he hits that he breaks faces and hits too hard bla bla bla. He’s really starting to struggle with more experienced fighters he’s not fooling me.
This is a good example of one wouldn’t and one couldn’t.
Berlanga will easily get KOd by the 168lb elite
Berlanga brings too much hype but, he’s got a long way to go before he can fight a top 25! Not ready for C type fighter yet, he strugled with an older burnt dude he was supposed to walk over and easily k.o.
Where did Arum find the 16 guys that got starched in the first round by this guy? Amazon.com?
Berlanga lost the fight plain and simple. The statistics in compubox support it. Rolls came with a game plan. Berlanga did not. In addition, why hire two additional trainers? All those trainers in his corners only did one thing. Create confusion, and mayhem. Berlanga should clean house and this has to include his father. There were 4 people on Edgar’s corner given advice including his father.
Berlanga has skills and power but he looked like an amateur in that fight.
Personally, I like Andre Rozier as a trainer but you cannot have two guys giving instructions in a 60-second time period between rounds. I have sat near Rozier when he worked corners in other fights and always liked the instructions he gave, but you cannot communicate with your fighter when he is looking the other way and listening to another voice. If Andre is not the only voice in the corner, he should walk away.
Anre Rozier did a terrible job with Jacobs over in England the other day. He needs a refresher course in training. I was an amateur long ago and I see huge offensive and defensive gaps in Rozier’s fighters. I often wonder if this guy is blind.
I agree with you on the one voice, but I’m not sure he should be the one voice at this point. It’s about chemistry and it’s clear to me that this formula is not advancing Berlanga’s skills. He needs to completely reboot at this point. He seems to be regressing and he even admitted he wasn’t listening to his corner.
Note: I’m not saying these guys are bad trainers, but I do think they’re not right for Berlanga at this point.
Not really in terms of how he fights, but more in terms of how I think his career may be going – Berlanga is starting to remind me of Jeff Lacy. They come up and we look at them as these crazy punching prospects, but as they fight better fighters we see… maybe they don’t punch as hard as we thought and they have serious defensive liabilities. Lacy held it together long enough to win a title, I don’t think Berlanga will, but maybe he proves me wrong.
I think Berlanga will be very, very lucky to accomplish close to as much as Lacy did. Lacy was at least beating legit guys, before his career took a nosedive.
I think you might be being too hard on him Matt. When Berlanga gets to his absolute best, I think he’ll be able to beat the equivalent of the likes of Robin Reid, Scott Pemberton and Omar Sheika.
You could be right Lucie. The question is, just what is Berlanga’s ceiling? I just thought he looked awful last night. No fire, no combinations, no cutting off the ring, moving like he was stuck in mud, tentative, eating jabs and not jabbing enough himself. He needs major work before fighting above the level of someone like an aging Steve Rolls.
There, I agree with you in everything you said Matt. I just don’t think he’s at his best right now. He’ll be 25 in a couple of months and he has time to work on things and, like you said, he has a lot of them to work on.
I was thinking about this fight today and why I thought Rolls won I have to admit that there were a lot of close rounds that could have been argued in both directions. Funny other then losing his undefeated record I do not think much would be different had Rolls got the decision. Berlanga would still have to be rebuild and reassess and Rolls would still be a 37 year old with a KO loss to GGG, a style that is not overly exciting, and would not be able to generate a fan base anywhere near what Berlanga can. In other words beating Berlanga would not make him Berlanga. So for Berlanga he needs to work on developing in a way that he can implement his strengths at a world class level for the duration of a 10 to 12 round contest. We must be remember that he basically only has 3 real pro fights now as he probably learned very little in his first 16. He is only 24 so we should not write him off yet. For Rolls maybe he gets another big name maybe he doesn’t. Either way he should hold his head up high. He is 37 and though he may have looked scared at times he went into New York against a man 13 years his junior who has a lot of hype and fought his fight. That takes a lot of courage. Courage that most of us…myself included could only dream of. There are not many of us fight fanatics here in Toronto Canada but regardless I am proud of what he did in there and I hope he is too!
He should definitely be proud, but I’m thinking he’s probably sitting around this morning pissed off that he didn’t get the decision. It’s an interesting point that had Rolls gotten the decision, probably not that much changes for himself or Berlanga. Rolls probably gets another nice payday if he wanted it, but he probably did enough to get another one anyway and we’re all surely looking at the Berlanga the same way: He needs a lot of work. And that’s a good point about Berlanga being basically 3-0 now. His last 3 fights have done way more for him than the previous 16 all combined. I remember hearing Teddy Atlas say that Mike Tyson’s real record was 0-6 because he’d only really encountered resistance — meaning had an actual fight — six times in his career and he lost all six.
Hi Lucy, I remember those comments from Teddy Atlas about Tyson. Why I agree Tyson did not rise from the ashes as well as many of boxing’s legends I thought Teddy may have been a little hard on him. His fights with Razor Ruddock were tough. Also had some resistance from Tony Tucker and Quick Tillis. He also landed that shot to erase the hole he dug himself with Frans Botha. Although he probably should have been disqualified when it seemed to take an entire security to stop him from breaking Botha’s arm at the end of the first round. My point is he did win against some resistance a few times. I would not get carried away and say he pulled a Gatti or anything but I thought saying he was 0-6 was a little harsh. Maybe 4 – 6…lol!!!
Okay, I would agree with that, he did win a few tough fights. But you know Atlas definitely isn’t Tyson’s biggest fan
That is true he is not! Back to Berlanga…the fighter that comes to mind for me is Shannon Briggs. He looked great destroying a certain level of competition, heck he was even doing it as an older fighter. He went on to have some success winning the titles with a gift decision against Foreman and a last second come from behind KO of the White Wolf. I do not think he was ever the major player he acted like but he had some mixed results with name fighters.
Lucie a poor man’s John Mugabe or maybe more of a Jose Threat Barett type
Mugabi might be an even better comparison than Lacy actually Johnny. That’s a good one. I kind of think Mugabi may have been one of the most overrated fighters of all time when you consider the guys he actually beat, but Berlanga has definitely already experienced some of that as well.
I actually saw this a while ago! He is a one dimensional fighter and isn’t really a huge puncher either! My goodness if he were to fight the likes of Benavidez, Andrade or even Plant he get smoked!! Zayas is a more complete fighter! Solid fundamentals and a good team around him!!
After reading about the results of this fight, I decided to listen to it while I did some plumbing repairs in the kitchen. Worked out well.
Just proving he’s not the ko sensation Tyson, or Mugabi, hearns was when coming up!!!
Berlanga the new Kirkland ?!
Berlanga is a super nice young man, but he’s overrated as a fighter. Tim Bradley did an interview where he keep it real on Berlanga. Well worth watching.
“He was a scared fighter”… You were a bad fighter.. learn how to throw a jab and cut off the ring before criticizing your opponent…