Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing InsiderJul 24, 2024, 05:43 PM ET
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- Mike Coppinger has covered boxing since 2010 with roles at USA Today, Ring Magazine and The Athletic before he joined ESPN in 2021. You can follow him on Twitter: @MikeCoppinger
Canelo Alvarez, boxing's top star, is set to defend his super middleweight championship against Edgar Berlanga on Sept. 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, sources told ESPN.
Alvarez, ESPN's No. 5 pound-for-pound boxer, will be a heavy favorite to dispatch Berlanga, who will fight on the upper echelon for the first time. Mexico's Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) is the undisputed champion at 168 pounds but it's possible the IBF title won't be on the line as his fight with the IBF mandatory challenger is overdue, sources said.
Alvarez, 34, is coming off a May decision victory over Jaime Munguia. Canelo hasn't scored a knockout since November 2021 but has scored knockdowns in each of his last three fights.
Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) is a 27-year-old from Brooklyn, New York of Puerto Rican descent. He's best known for starting his career with 16 first-round KOs. However, as his competition stiffened, Berlanga's next five opponents lasted the distance. Berlanga's last in-ring action was a sixth-round KO of Padraig McCrory in February.
David Benavidez has been the public's top option for fighting Alvarez for years, but Canelo has shown no interest in the WBC interim super middleweight champion.
How did the Alvarez-Berlanga matchup materialize? Who else was considered? Let's take a look as Alvarez prepares for another Mexican Independence Day weekend fight:
Who else was in the running to fight Alvarez in September?
The other finalist was Chris Eubank Jr., per sources. Eubank, 34, is the son of British boxer Chris Eubank, who starred in the 1990s in England.
Eubank, too, would have been a major underdog against Alvarez. He's coming off a 10th-round TKO victory over Liam Smith last September that avenged a KO loss to Smith earlier in the year.
Eubank is also a middleweight (rated No. 4 by ESPN) and would have moved up in weight for the opportunity. While Eubank would have raised interest in the U.K., his name resonates less than Berlanga's stateside.
What about Berlanga? Does he pose any threat to Alvarez?
There's nothing to suggest Berlanga, ESPN's No. 6 super middleweight, will present any issues for Alvarez inside the ring.
Berlanga doesn't appear to have the boxing skills to hang with an all-time great, even with his good size and power at 168 pounds. Alvarez is an expert counter-puncher who knows how to set traps for his opponents. He's also a fearsome puncher, even at 168 pounds, after he won his first title at 154 in 2011.
Most of all, Alvarez is far more experienced than Berlanga. He's faced virtually every opponent of note over the past 10 years, from Floyd Mayweather to Miguel Cotto and a trio of fights with Gennadiy Golovkin.
Anything Berlanga brings into the ring, Alvarez has seen it, and that could help him to score his first KO in nearly three years.
Why won't Alvarez face Benavidez?
Benavidez would present a dangerous test for Alvarez, but to this point, Alvarez has shown virtually no interest in the matchup boxing fans most want to see. Benavidez is a big, strong volume-puncher and appears to own considerable punch resistance.
Benavidez has also undoubtedly earned a shot at Alvarez. He defeated Caleb Plant and Demetrius Andrade in impressive fashion last year. Benavidez claims Canelo is avoiding a fight with him because he's a rising star of Mexican descent, and a loss would mean Alvarez has passed the torch.
"I think he's scared of him losing and then me taking all the shine," Benavidez told ESPN back in June. "... I don't really think he's scared of me. ... I think he doesn't like me and he doesn't want ... another Mexican to take the shine."
Whatever the case may be, Benavidez is now campaigning at 175 pounds since he realized an Alvarez fight wasn't on the horizon.
Who does that leave for Alvarez to face in a superfight after what amounts to a stay-busy bout vs. Berlanga?
Assuming Alvarez takes care of business against Berlanga in impressive fashion, there's only one dance partner outside of Benavidez who can present a marquee event with Alvarez: Terence Crawford.
Crawford, 36, has lobbied for a shot at Alvarez since he dismantled Errol Spence Jr. last July to win the undisputed welterweight championship. Crawford is ESPN's No. 2 pound-for-pound boxer, and he returns to the ring on Aug. 3 in a junior middleweight title fight against Israil Madrimov.
The jump to 154 pounds brings Crawford closer in weight to Alvarez, but they're still two weight classes apart. Alvarez said in May after his win over Munguia that he wasn't interested in fighting someone smaller than him because it's a lose-lose proposition.
But in recent months, whispers have grown louder that Alvarez would entertain such a fight next year. Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, is keen to match Crawford with Canelo.
Crawford, of course, can help his case greatly by continuing his 11-fight KO streak with another one over Madrimov, an underrated fighter who is an athletic puncher.
Why is Alvarez-Berlanga opposing UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas?
Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev went head-to-head with UFC 244: Nate Diaz vs. Jorge Masvidal in November 2019, and the lasting image of Alvarez and his opponent falling asleep in the dressing room is hard to shake as they looked to avoid the main events coinciding. And those events were in different cities. It was a 95-minute gap between the co main event (Ryan Garcia vs. Romero Duno) and the moment Canelo-Kovalev started.
Now, two of the titans of the fight game will clash in Las Vegas as Alvarez-Berlanga and UFC 306 will both land on Sept. 14.
It's no surprise Alvarez is fighting on that date. Mexican Independence Day weekend has long been one of two key dates reserved for boxing's top star (along with Cinco De Mayo weekend), a tradition that was held by Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya before him.
PBC will lead the event on Prime Video PPV with Matchroom Boxing involved as Berlanga's promoter, sources said. The PPV will also be available on Matchroom streaming partner DAZN like it was for Alvarez's May win over Munguia.
Last year UFC pounced on the holiday before Alvarez could secure the date, and delivered Noche UFC, a fight night card.
With MGM properties representing all the top venues on the Las Vegas Strip, there was nowhere else for Alvarez to go. He instead fought two weeks later and defeated Jermell Charlo at T-Mobile Arena.
This time, it's a different story as the UFC stages the first live sporting event at the Sphere, a revolutionary, immersive arena owned by Madison Square Garden Company.
The UFC has a very different audience, so it's probable both events will find plenty of success. And with Alvarez's legion of passionate fans from Mexico, it's also assured he will bring fans in drove to his event -- though it figures to be a key storyline all week in Las Vegas. And it's once again being presented as Noche UFC.
"So, we're going in there during Mexican Independence Day and I'm going to put on the greatest live event anybody's ever seen, and it's going to be this huge love letter to all of combat and combat sports throughout the history of Mexico," White said on "The Pat McAfee Show" in February.
No fights have been formally announced for UFC 306 thus far.
"I'm already $17 million into this thing and we're not anywhere near September yet," White said earlier this month on "The Pat McAfee Show." "When I tell you guys I'm going to put on the greatest live sporting event in the history of combat sports, maybe in sports period, nobody else is going to go in and spend [that much money]."
