Edgar Berlanga and Steve Rolls headlined an eight-bout fight card at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Rolls was there to test Berlanga’s boxing skills. The second test was how many tickets Berlanga and a contingent of fellow fighters from Puerto Rico and New York’s Puerto Rican community could sell.

The arena was sold out with an announced attendance of 5,158. The fans arrived early and had a good time.

Top Rank promoted the event as a developmental card. The eight fighters in the red corner began the evening with a composite ring record of 75-0 with 52 knockouts. The idea was to get them a bit more combat experience, some exposure on ESPN, and eight more “W”s. Some of the opponents put in spirited efforts. But Top Rank matchmakers Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman don’t make many mistakes.

The first four fights ended in stoppages, including a particularly brutal knockout of Veuri Andujar by Bruce Carrington in round five of a contest that should have been stopped a round earlier. The next three bouts went to the judges’ scorecards. Eric Dali’s handling of several undercard fights confirmed that he’s one of the better referees working in the northeast. Then it was time for Berlanga-Rolls.

Knockouts fire the imagination. Berlanga, a 24-year-old super-middleweight from New York, began his career with 16 first-round knockouts in 16 fights. The men he defeated had a composite ring record of 175 wins, 67 losses, and 15 draws at the time he fought them. Thirteen of them had winning records. They weren’t world class fighters but some of them were more than cannon fodder. Then Edgar was taken the distance (eight rounds) in a win over Demond Nicholson. After that, he fought Marcelo Esteban Coceres, suffered a torn biceps in his left arm, and fought through debilitating pain to win a ten-round decision.

Rolls (21-1, 12 KOs), one month shy of 38 years old, was a step up for Berlanga. Most of his fights had been in Canada against pedestrian opposition. The one time he’d fought against world-class competition, he was obliterated in four rounds by Gennady Golovkin. He wasn’t a puncher. But he has some skills.

Berlanga was an 18-to-1 betting favorite. But the ride turned out to be bumpier than he expected. Rolls fought a cautious survival fight while Edgar looked wooden and one-dimensional. He has a punishing jab but didn’t throw it often enough and rarely threw it in combination with a right hand or anything else behind it.

In sum, Rolls couldn’t hurt Berlanga. And Berlanga couldn’t hit Rolls. This writer scored the fight 96-94 for Berlanga. The judges concurred by a 97-93, 97-93, 96-94 margin.

“He was fighting scared,” Berlanga said afterward. “Every time I reached in or threw something, he’d pull back and was running the whole fight. It’s tough to land your shots when he’s scared, especially moving back. When he fought GGG, he brought it to GGG. With me, he tried to use that running tactic.”

That said; Rolls was a measuring stick for Berlanga. And Edgar came up shorter than expected.

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Boxing fans with a good memory might remember the name “Joseph A. Maffia.” Decades ago, he was the chief financial officer for Don King Productions. Subpoenaed in 1992 to appear before a United States Senate subcommittee that was investigating corruption in professional boxing, he told the truth. Later, he was a witness before a grand jury in New York. On the basis of his testimony, King was indicted for insurance fraud. A jury found the promoter “not guilty” on all charges. I should note here that I was Maffia’s attorney during part of that process.

Maffia, age 63, grew up in a single-parent home in Spanish Harlem. He went to high school at Power Memorial Academy (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lou Alcindor, was an earlier graduate), attended Iona on a track-and-field scholarship, and graduated from college with a degree in accounting. He has been a certified public accountant for forty years and has played a significant role in various community and business projects.

What is Maffia doing today? He’s now the Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly seat representing the 75th assembly district on the west side of Manhattan. The district’s landmarks include the Empire State Building, Hudson Yards, the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Hall, Penn Station, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, and part of Central Park.

Maffia styles himself as a moderate Republican and says that he crossed party lines to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. His campaign platform is available at https://maffiaforny.com. Realistically, his chances of winning on November 8 are slim. There are 115,000 registered voters in the 75th assembly district, and the breakdown by party is Democratic 62%, Republican 10%, Independent 22%, other 6%.

As for Don King; when asked what he thinks of his former chief financial officer’s foray into elective politics, King just laughed.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has engendered outrage throughout the world. Former HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant recently spoke of the fighting.

“All four of my grandparent were born in Ukraine,” Merchant told this writer. “My mother came to the United States when she was three months old. I can’t say that I ever gave much thought to my Ukrainian heritage. But what’s happening now has kindled feelings in me that I didn’t know I had or, more likely, never had before. [Ukrainian president Volodymry] Zelensky is a hero. Vitali Klitschko is a hero. The boxers who’ve left the safety of their homes in other countries and returned to Ukraine to fight are heroes. These men are giving us a lesson in true patriotism, not the flag-waving, empty talk we’ve heard so much of in recent years. Boxing should be very proud of them.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – Broken Dreams: Another Year Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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