Edgar Berlanga is aiming to beat Alexis Angulo before moving onto a title shot.
The Puerto Rican super middleweight is preparing for a fight at the Madison Square Garden on 11 June with the WBO NABO title on the line, but he hopes 2023 brings with it a shot at a world championship.
The 25-year-old is seeking out plenty of advice, and BoxingScene.com reported that a recent run he shared with the legendary Felix ‘Tito’ Trinidad brought with it some guidance.
If you’re a Puerto Rican boxer, when Felix “Tito” Trinidad talks, you listen.
“He was just breaking a lot of things down to me,” he explained. “And one of the things he said that opened up my eyes was 'Stay here and train. You got the Puerto Rican Day weekend coming up and it's best for you to be out here on the island so that people can see you. They're gonna support you and if they love you now, they're gonna love you twice as much.' So I took his advice.”
The fight takes place on the day before the Naitonal Puerto Rican Day parade, with the unbeaten fighter looking for his 20th straight victory to mark the occasion.
“Yeah, I'm ready for it,” Berlanga continued. “I know it's not easy to fill those shoes with what [Miguel] Cotto did and Trinidad did. All I want to do is bring back boxing to Puerto Rico, that fire, that light, that thing that people wanted for the Puerto Rican Day weekend. I'm blessed to be in this position.
“He [Trinidad] told me that night I'm gonna turn into a different type of monster that night, for sure,” said Berlanga. “With him, he grew off the energy in the arena with the people, and he said that night is gonna be the same thing for me. He said he knows I'm gonna show out that night.”
Berlanga delivered 16 straight first-round knockouts, but his most recent three bouts - against Demond Nicholson, Marcelo Esteban Coceres and then Steve Rolls in March - have been wins via decision.
“I feel like I still got a chip on my shoulder,” explained Berlanga of how the recent change has affected him and how others see him. “I'm glad I got that experience of going to those later rounds, but I feel like people still don't respect my game. I'm still fighting for that. I want people to understand that this kid’s got it. But I feel like the opposite. I feel like everybody thinks I don't have it, that I was a fluke or a hype job. But it's boxing. When I was knocking people out, people were saying I was knocking bums out. Now that I go the distance, everybody's saying that I'm a bum.
“In boxing, if you ain't got haters, you ain't doing it right. You have to have haters. You can't make everybody happy. The only people you can make happy is your family. So my family - my son, my wife, my father, my mother, and the rest of my close family - those are the only people I want to make happy. I can't please the world, so I take it like it comes.”
However, Berlanga cautioned: “My first fight going the distance [against Nicholson], that was the fight that if I would have had another 10-15 seconds, they would have stopped the fight.
“The Coceres fight, I broke his orbital bone in three places, and that was another fight that was supposed to be stopped as well. Then my last fight, I fought Rolls, and Rolls had a decent gameplan of trying to box. Everybody expects all these things of me because of the first-round knockouts, but this is boxing. You're not gonna knock everybody out. Some fights you'll catch a knockout, some fights you won't, especially when you're stepping up in competition.”
He then outlined his aims for the coming 12 months, saying: “Puerto Rican Day weekend with a title on the line.
“That would be huge, and a dream come true for me. First, I obviously gotta handle my business Saturday and finish the year with another fight, and then we look forward to 2023.”