Edgar Berlanga is still willing to fight Jaime Munguia next.
The unbeaten Berlanga just wants to make sure that he will be paid appropriately for what on paper would be the most difficult fight of the super middleweight contender’s seven-year professional career. Berlanga denied during an interview with BoxingScene.com on Thursday that he has turned down the seemingly fan friendly Munguia match, which DAZN executives have pushed promoters Eddie Hearn (Berlanga) and Oscar De La Hoya (Munguia) to make for the streaming service’s subscribers.
“Oscar De La Hoya came out and said I turned down the Munguia fight,” Berlanga told BoxingScene in reference to an interview De La Hoya did with Fight Hub TV’s YouTube channel. “As of right now, I’m still in discussions with my promoter and actually we’re set to meet up in Florida soon to go over all the financials to see if we can make it happen. I wanna sit down with Eddie and with my team in person and figure out what our side is getting, and what the Golden Boy side is getting, for this fight. It’s hard to make a decision until I know all the details, so anybody saying that the fight isn’t happening because of me at this point doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
Brooklyn’s Berlanga, 26, didn’t specify how much money he has been offered thus far to fight Mexico’s Munguia (42-0, 33 KOs), an all-action 168-pound contender who edged longtime middleweight contender Sergiy Derevyanchenko (14-5, 10 KOs) by unanimous decision in their 12-round “Fight of the Year” frontrunner June 10 at Toyota Center in Ontario, California. Berlanga (21-0, 16 KOs) had hoped to eventually challenge Canelo Alvarez when the popular Puerto Rican boxer agreed to sign with Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing in February, but the iconic, undisputed super middleweight champion subsequently signed a three-fight deal with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions after he beat British southpaw John Ryder by unanimous decision May 6 at Akron Stadium in Zapopan, Mexico.
A fight with Guadalajara’s Alvarez obviously would’ve been much more lucrative for Berlanga than fighting Tijuana’s Munguia, who also has developed a fan base in Southern California and Mexico. The unbeaten Munguia is the most appealing super middleweight still aligned with DAZN that Berlanga can fight, though, now that Alvarez is committed to competing on another platform (Showtime Pay-Per-View).
Berlanga realizes a fight with Munguia is marketable, but he emphasized that the dollars must make sense for him to agree to do it.
“Like any fighter going into a huge fight, you need to know all the details and the business side of things before you commit to saying yes or no,” said Berlanga, who unanimously outpointed Ireland’s Jason Quigley (20-3, 14 KOs) in his Matchroom/DAZN debut June 24 in New York. “We are in a risky business. Any fighter that makes a decision without knowing everything doesn’t have a good team around them.
“So, like I said, discussions are still going on. I’m meeting with my promoter and my team soon to discuss the full offer, so I know all the details. I believe I have the right to know everything, just like any other fighter going into the biggest fight of his life.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.