Canelo Alvarez will headline a boxing card in Las Vegas for the 18th time when he puts his WBC, WBO and WBA super middleweight world titles on the line against Edgar Berlanga on Saturday night. The fight card at T-Mobile Arena also includes Erislandy Lara defending his WBA middleweight title against Danny Garcia and a super middleweight bout between Caleb Plant and Trevor McCumby for the vacant WBA interim title.
Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) has held titles in four divisions, including the lineal championship at middleweight and super middleweight. Alvarez became the undisputed super middleweight champion by defeating Plant by 11th-round TKO in November 2021. He made four successful defenses before the IBF stripped him of the belt in July when Alvarez decided to face Berlanga instead of the IBF’s mandatory challenger, William Scull.
“I just want to show everyone that I’m still the best,” Alvarez said during Wednesday’s news conference in Las Vegas. “I still love this sport. When I stop loving it, you’ll know. I love my routine and I love going to the gym every day.”
Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) has never fought for a world title. After starting his career 16-0, with all of his victories coming in the first round, Berlanga has scored just one stoppage in his past six victories.
Berlanga, a heavy underdog (+900 per ESPN BET), knows he has to do something special to beat Alvarez, one of the best fighters in the world.
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Berlanga said. “It’s gonna be a firefight this weekend. … I’m gonna make everyone a believer. We have Puerto Rico vs. Mexico and we’re going at it on Saturday night.”
Let’s take a look at the title fight by the numbers, with data from ESPN Stats & Information and CompuBox.
-2000: Odds for Alvarez to win the fight, per ESPN BET.
1,582: Total seconds fought by Berlanga in his first 16 fights as a pro, which all ended in the first round, for an average of 98.9 seconds per fight. The combined record of all 16 opponents at the time of their fights was 175 wins, 67 loses and 15 draws.
4: Successful title defenses by Alvarez as undisputed super middleweight champion. He’s the only male boxer with four defenses of an undisputed title in the four-belt era (since 2007).
21: Victories by Alvarez in world title fights; at 21-2-1, he’s the fourth Mexican-born fighter with 20 or more wins in world title fights. With a win on Saturday, he would break a tie with Marco Antonio Barrera for the third most wins in world title fights by a Mexican fighter (Julio Cesar Chavez, 31; Ricardo “Finito” Lopez, 25).
11: Undisputed men’s champions in the modern four-belt era. In addition to Alvarez, they are: Bernard Hopkins, Jermain Taylor, Terence Crawford, Oleksandr Usyk, Teofimo Lopez, Josh Taylor, George Kambosos Jr., Devin Haney, Jermell Charlo and Naoya Inoue.
