Canelo Alvarez’s Next title defense for his undisputed super middleweight championship could be either Edgar Berlanga or Jermall Charlo on September 14th or a few weeks later.
According to ChavaESPN, the superstar Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) could face Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) or the former two-division world champion Charlo (33-0, 22 KOs).
Charlo: The Preferred Tune-Up?
The choice could come down to which of the two Canelo and his manager, Eddy Reynoso, feels would be the better preparation for a mega-fight against Terence Crawford.
Given that the 27-year-old Berlanga is a simple, straight-ahead brute fighter without much technical ability, relying on size and power, he would be a poor tune-up for Canelo. Jermall is the far better tune-up for Canelo if he fights Crawford in his next contest.
Jermall, 34, recently came off a 2.5-year layoff to defeat Jose Benavidez Jr. by a lopsided twelve-round unanimous decision last November in Las Vegas. It was a decent performance by Charlo, who many felt would look bad, but he looked pretty good for a fighter coming off a long gap.
Charlo has recently been seen training, which indicates that his management has told him to begin preparing for the potential fight against Canelo in September.
Edgar Berlanga believes he’ll be Canelo’s next opponent, and he’s talked about it recently in interviews, talking about “getting that bag.”
A lot of fans on social media feel that Berlanga only wants the payday and doesn’t believe he has any chance of winning but would be in it to get retirement money.
They don’t see him as being ready for a title shot against Canelo, which would seem obvious, given how the New Yorker has looked against the low-level oppoiosition promoters had matched against him. They haven’t taken any chances with Berlanga by putting him in with quality opposition.
If Berlanga loses, he will likely slip back into obscurity and become food for one of the talented contenders, such as David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, Diego Pacheco, or Christian Mbilli.