Phenoms Berlanga and Zayas Headline Top Rank’s Puerto Rican Extravaganza

The third week of March usually finds Top Rank at Madison Square Garden with a show designed to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. This year, for various reasons, there weren’t enough Irish boxers of note available to flesh it out so Bob Arum moved the show to Saturday and gave it a Puerto Rican flavor.

Puerto Rico has a rich boxing heritage, but there have been peaks and valleys and, at the moment, we’re in one of those valleys. Currently only one Puerto Rican male holds a world boxing title and you may go right to the head of the line if you can identify him. Spoiler alert, it’s Jonathan Gonzalez, an 11-year pro who captured the WBO light flyweight (108-pound) title with a split decision over Mexico’s Elwin Soto this past October on a Matchroom card in Fresno.

The drought is unlikely to last long because two Puerto Ricans currently fighting under the Top Rank banner are seemingly destined to become title-holders and something more – big stars with big fan bases, heirs to Puerto Rican legends Wilfredo Gomez, Felix Trinidad and Miguel Cotto. Both will be showcased on Top Rank’s show which will emanate from the Garden’s Hulu Theater and air on ESPN.

Berlanga

Edgar Berlanga, a 24-year-old super middleweight, attracted a lot of buzz while mowing down his first 16 opponents in the opening round. His last two fights have gone the distance, the most recent of which was his first 10-rounder, a supporting bout to Fury-Wilder III at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Berlanga was matched against Argentina’s Marcelo Coceres, a former world title challenger, and for the first time in his career he faced adversity. In round nine, Coceres put him on the canvas with a counter right hand. Berlanga still won seven of the 10 rounds on all three cards, improving to 18-0, and he did it despite fighting the last half of the fight with a torn biceps.

Berlanga is matched against Steve Rolls, a 37-year-old Toronto fighter with a 21-1 (12) mark. Rolls has won two straight against tepid opposition since suffering his lone defeat, a fourth-round stoppage at the hands of Gennadiy Golovkin. He fought GGG on fairly even terms until the roof fell in.

Berlanga is one of an estimated 1.4 million Puerto Ricans in Greater New York. He grew up in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. This is his third appearance at Madison Square Garden, but his first as the headliner. Arum purportedly hopes to use him again here on June 11, the weekend of New York’s annual Puerto Rican Day parade.

Zayas

Xander Zayas (12-0, 9 KOs) isn’t as heavy-handed as Berlanga but the general feeling is that he has an even bigger upside. The youngest fighter ever signed by Top Rank when he turned pro in February of 2019, he’s still a teenager; he won’t turn “20” until September.

Born in San Juan, Zayas moved to the Miami area with his mother, stepfather, and sister when he was 11 years old. A decorated amateur, he’s answered the bell as a pro for only 32 rounds and has yet to lose a round. This is his second straight appearance at Madison Square Garden. In his last outing, carrying 152 ½ pounds on his five-foot-10 frame, he blew away Italy’s Alessio Mastronunzio in the opening round.

Several on-line publications, TSS among them, named Zayas the 2021 Prospect of the Year. It will be surprising if he doesn’t go on to win world titles in multiple weight classes and, no, you didn’t hear that here first.

Zayas’s opponent on Saturday, Quincy LaVallais, hails from the New Orleans blue-collar suburb of Kenner. He’s 12-2-1 as a pro with his best win coming against noted spoiler Clay Collard. It’s an 8-rounder.

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The Puerto Rican infusion doesn’t stop here. The opening bout on the main card of the ESPN tripleheader pits Puerto Rico-born junior welterweight John Bauza (16-0, 7 KOs) from North Bergen, New Jersey, against Canadian veteran Tony Luis (29-4, 10 KOs).

A 23-year-old southpaw, Bauza was reputedly 178-8 as an amateur. But Luis, who will be making his first start in 19 months, won’t be an easy nut to crack, at least on paper.

In another fight of note, an 8-round super featherweight contest, Henry Lebron, a 24-year-old southpaw from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, risks his undefeated record against Josec Ruiz, a 27-year-old Honduran. Lebron is 14-0 (9 KOs). Ruiz (23-5-3) has lost three of his last five but has never been stopped. Also, 20-year-old Florida lightweight Armani Almestica, whose family roots are in Puerto Rico, will appear in a 6-rounder. An intriguing prospect, Almestica is 4-0 as a pro with all four wins coming by way of stoppage.

Undercard action on ESPN+ gets underway at 7:30 pm ET with the main card airing on ESPN at 10:00 ET / 7 PM PT.

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