Edgar Berlanga affirmatively answered a lot of questions the night of Sept. 14.
Before Berlanga went the distance with clearly his most imposing opponent, the brash Brooklyn native’s critics correctly wondered whether he could compete with a heavily favored fighter at the elite level. His streak of 16 consecutive first-round knockouts had ended three years earlier. Careful matchmaking, going the distance in four straight fights and getting dropped by Marcelo Coceres made many wonder whether the self-anointed “Chosen One” was merely a carefully manufactured contender who would wilt under the brightest lights.
And Berlanga’s harshest skeptics seemed as though they were onto something when Saul "Canelo" Alvarez blasted Berlanga with a left hook that knocked him to the seat of his trunks barely a minute into the third round of that September blockbuster.