WHEN Edgar Berlanga Snr walked out of the prison gates a free man he expected to find his son hurting people. The Puerto Ricanโs incarceration had left his family fraught with worry for what might happen to Edgar Jnr, a whirling dervish of a teenager floundering in the deprivation of New Yorkโs Lower East Side. Berlanga Snr reached out to his friend and local boxing coach, Benny Roman, in a bid to give his son some direction.
โHe started looking after me in the gym,โ Top Rankโs super-middleweight prospect Edgar Berlanga Jnr tells Boxing News.
โHe was doing a favour for my dad. My dad asked him, โPlease, Iโm going away. Please keep Edgar in the gym.โ Benny kept that promise. He picked me up every day and just kept me there. And it was working โฆ to a certain extent.โ
Keeping on straight paths is difficult in a neighbourhood as tough as Bushwick, Brooklyn. Berlanga Jnr recalls those early days with a sombre reverence, the struggles and the conflict, desperate people doing desperate things just to survive.
โI lived in the projects all my life,โ he explains. โIโm a projects baby. Itโs rough. You gotta deal with a lot of crap; people trying to steal from you, people trying to hurt you. My sister was getting into fights, I was getting into fights. Being so young, that actually made me a man, growing up from there. And Iโm not ashamed to say Iโm from where Iโm from. Brooklyn, the Lower East Side. Iโm not afraid to say that. If you know Bushwick back in the days, oh man! It made me who I am. It gave me that mental toughness.โ
From an early age it was clear Berlanga Jnr was gifted with his fists. He remembers vividly his first fight with a school bully, not only the punishment he dished out to him but โthe buzz, the quick rushโ of duking it out on the street. His natural talent had been a genuine source of hope for his father as he sat marking time in his jail cell. So it was with a degree of shock and disappointment that he returned home to find his son had abandoned his gloves for a ball, a hoop, and a new goal.
โI fell in love with basketball. I would take days off from the gym just to play. And I was getting pretty good. I was actually getting very good. Pops came home and I told him, โI think I wanna play basketball.โ And he was like, โNo, youโre not playing basketball. Youโre gonna be a fighter instead. Youโre good at it. Iโm here, Iโm back home. This is how itโs gonna be.โ Then he said to me, โYouโre the LeBron James, youโre the Michael Jordan, youโre the Koby Bryant of boxing.โ Those were his words. I took his word for it and Iโm here now.โ
With his father free and his self-belief emboldened Edgar Jnr began to dominate the amateur boxing circuit. By the time he made the decision to turn over heโd amassed an impressive record of 162-17 as well as eight national championships and a silver medal in the Junior Olympic Nationals. Huge achievements for any young fighter, but Berlanga already had his journey mapped out.
โWhen I hit 15 I already knew what I wanted. I already had it in my mind that I was gonna turn pro. And I always said that as a kid I was gonna sign with Top Rank. I made my dream come true.โ
Turning professional was one thing, but the spectacular nature of his transition was quite another. Removing the headguard and donning 8oz gloves for the first time, Berlanga Jnr discovered a degree of power in his hands that left him genuinely shocked.
โWhen I turned pro I thought, โS**t, I can really punch.โ I never knew I could punch in the amateurs. It was more about just throwing punches and finishing rounds strong. When I turned pro I was training for four, six, eight, 10 rounds. Itโs just a different feeling. I can truly say I was made for this. A lot of fighters, I call them โgym starsโ. They look good on the bag, they look good sparring, they look good shadow boxing, but when it comes to fighting they canโt perform. Itโs too much pressure. I turn that pressure into a positive. When people think itโs negative, I turn it into a positive. I just grasp onto that.โ
A debut knockout victory in the first round was followed by another. Then another. And another. By the time Bob Arumโs Top Rank team approached him with a contract in March 2019 heโd already amassed a record of 9-0, all by knockout. All in the first round. And he wasnโt finished there. Top Rank began placing the young power puncher on major undercards, lining up more fights to showcase their new prodigy. Seven more fights, seven more knockouts. You guessed it, all in the first round. So what does he think is the key to a remarkable run that edges him closer to equalling Ali Raymiโs fabled record of 21 first round KOs? โPatience and poise. Iโm more cautious. Iโm more aware of a lot things in the ring. I box beautifully now and I sit down a lot on my shots now. Thatโs why Iโve been catching a lot of knockouts. Iโm very, very, very accurate. I always had that as a kid, accuracy. Anything I did, when I played baseball, when I was pitching, I always shot the ball down the middle. When timing the bat from hitting the ball I always timed it very well. When I started playing basketball, I started getting the hang of my jump shot and where to shoot and what angle to shoot. I was very accurate with those things, and I just turned that into landing my punches the right way when I turned pro. Just be accurate, donโt waste shots and donโt throw just to throw. I throw with meaning. So itโs just accuracy and patience.โ ย
His success has already caught the attention of some major names in the world of boxing, most notably Mike Tyson, who recently described his performances as โsensational.โ Yet all of this appears to feel inevitable to an up-and-coming fighter with an unshakeable belief in the Law Of Attraction, a philosophy that claims positive or negative thoughts will be mirrored in a personโs life experiences.
โI truly believe that when you think it, when you believe it, and when you talk it, it comes to light. If you say, โIโm a bum, Iโm lazy, I donโt have no motivation,โ if thatโs what you put out into the universe thatโs whatโs gonna happen. Thatโs all youโre gonna get. If you continue to tell yourself, โIโm gonna be a world champ. Iโm gonna have the throne of Trinidad and Cotto. Iโm gonna sell out Madison Square Garden. Iโm gonna be that guy from New York, from Puerto Rico, thatโs gonna bring everybody back together like it was back in the early 2000s and the 90s.โ Thatโs one thing about me, I always imagined it. And now itโs plain. Itโs exactly how I said, everything is exactly how I said it.โ
Berlanga Jnr now has the cream of the super-middleweight division in his crosshairs. And though some may scoff at the huge step up in class that those names represent, his ambition has only been strengthened by seeing his friend and fellow Top Rank star, Teofimo Lopez, defeat a pound-for-pound great in Vasiliy Lomachenko to become the undisputed lightweight champion of the world.
โThis generation thatโs coming in now, we have balls. Weโre not worried about all this bulls**t. Weโre willing to step up to the plate and face whoever. And my brother, Teofimo, he started it. And I know heโs motivated a whole generation of kids thatโs coming up thatโs young and hungry. And Iโm one of them, man. I witnessed it live, him becoming undisputed champ. Now Iโm like, โS**t, man, I wanna fight Canelo.โ Just like Teofimo did, he went straight to the source. Thatโs the guy that has it so thatโs the guy we want. Itโs no bad intentions on him, itโs just this generation now, itโs what weโre doing. Shooting for the top dog, and weโre joining them.โ