Edgar Berlanga was taken the distance in a third straight fight Saturday night, but the super middleweight managed to remain unbeaten.
Brooklyn’s Berlanga did enough to defeat a skillful, tough Steve Rolls by unanimous decision in their 10-round main event.
Judges Tom Carusone (97-93) and Mark Consentino (97-93) scored seven rounds apiece for Berlanga, who won six rounds according to Frank Lombardi (96-94) in the main event of an eight-bout card before a capacity crowd of 5,158 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater.
Berlanga didn’t throw many punches in combination, though, and wasn’t overly impressive in a fight ESPN televised. His performance, according to Berlanga, was partially attributable to the 37-year-old Rolls’ reluctance to engage.
Edgar Berlanga is a hype job. He just went all 10 rounds with a 37 year old and easily lost 3 of them. Also made no improvement at all from his last fight where he got dropped by a guy not even ranked in the Top 30. pic.twitter.com/4vKEm6rOFl
— muliani (@MulianiEnt) March 20, 2022
“That was like a “C” performance,” Berlanga told BoxingScene.com. “I couldn’t get my punches off the way I wanted to. The guy was scared. Every time I opened up, it was like he was moving – scared tactics, you know? If you know boxing, you know that fighting a scared fighter is the hardest [fight]. I thought he was gonna stay there and fight me, but he ran the whole fight.”
Rolls actually out-landed Berlanga by three punches according to CompuBox’s unofficial count (123-of-447 to 120-of-314).
CompuBox counted three more power punches for Berlanga (63-of-148 to 60-of-190) and six more jabs for Rolls (63-of-257 to 57-of-166).
