Bob Arum’s promotional firm has reserved Madison Sq. Backyard’s Hulu Theater for back-to-back Saturday nights in June.
BoxingScene.com has realized that Prime Rank Inc. intends to have Brooklyn-based tremendous middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga headline a present at The Backyard’s smaller venue in Manhattan the night time of June 11 in opposition to an undetermined opponent. Assuming Arum’s firm finalizes a deal for a light-weight heavyweight title unification bout between Artur Beterbiev and Joe Smith Jr., their 12-round, 175-pound championship match could be the primary occasion of Prime Rank’s present June 18 at Hulu Theater.
ESPN would televise the June 11 and June 18 playing cards.
For these two exhibits to proceed as deliberate, nonetheless, the unbeaten Berlanga should defeat Steve Rolls in a 10-round foremost occasion ESPN will air Saturday night time from Hulu Theater. If Berlanga beats Rolls, Prime Rank’s matchmakers will assess his choices for June 11 primarily based on how he performs Saturday night time.
FanDuel Sportsbook lists the 24-year-old Berlanga (18-0, 16 KOs) as an 18-1 favourite to defeat Rolls (21-1, 12 KOs).
The 37-year-old Rolls will battle Berlanga in Berlanga’s return from an uneven efficiency in opposition to Argentina’s Marcelo Coceres on October 9 in Las Vegas. The hard-hitting Berlanga tore his left biceps within the third spherical of that bout, however he fought via that important damage, acquired up from a flash knockdown throughout the ninth spherical and defeated Coceres (30-3-1, 16 KOs) on all three scorecards on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder undercard at T-Cellular Area.
Berlanga’s damage required surgical procedure and roughly three months of bodily remedy and relaxation, which stored him out of the health club till January.
Toronto’s Rolls is most recognized for his fourth-round knockout loss to Kazakh knockout artist Gennadiy Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs) of their 12-round, non-title middleweight struggle in June 2019 at Madison Sq. Backyard.
In the meantime, Arum and co-promoters for Beterbiev (Yvon Michel) and Smith (Joe DeGuardia) are inching nearer towards finishing a deal for them to struggle for Beterbiev’s IBF and WBC and Smith’s WBO mild heavyweight titles. The winner between Beterbiev (17-0, 17 KOs) and Smith (28-3, 22 KOs), assuming their struggle doesn’t end in a draw or no-contest, would want solely the WBA 175-pound title to grow to be boxing’s absolutely unified mild heavyweight champion.
Russia’s Dmitry Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs) will defend his WBA 175-pound crown in opposition to Canelo Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) on Might 7 at T-Cellular Area.
Keith Idec is a senior author/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He could be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
