Edgar Berlanga's Zuffa Boxing Debut: Rebuild Starts at MSG vs Butler

Edgar Berlanga is 23-2 with 18 knockouts, and for the first time in his career, one of those losses came by stoppage. Hamzah Sheeraz took care of that last summer in Queens, dropping the New Yorker in the fifth round of a fight Berlanga insists he was winning on the cards. Now "The Chosen One" returns home to Madison Square Garden on Sunday, July 26, headlining Zuffa Boxing 09 against Canadian puncher Steven Butler in his debut for the promotion.

It's a genuine crossroads bout. Butler, a Montreal native, carries a 38-5-1 record with 32 knockouts, and he's been especially dangerous since moving up from middleweight — all four of his fights at 168 pounds have ended inside the distance via KO. Berlanga picked him on purpose, saying he had no interest in a soft touch coming off his first defeat. He wants a firefight, and against Butler he's likely to get one.

The Home-Run Hitter Cools Off

Berlanga's origin story is one of the more remarkable ones in recent memory: 16 straight professional wins, all by first-round knockout. That run made him a New York attraction, drawing celebrities and casual fans who tuned in expecting a highlight. Then the distance fights arrived, the KO streak dried up, and, in his words, people started calling him trash. He compared it to a baseball slugger going cold — brutal in a city that expects perfection from its stars.

The switch to Zuffa Boxing feels like a reset, and Berlanga was effusive about the operational side of it. He credited Dana White and the promotion for the kind of athlete support boxing rarely provides — nutritionists texting him meal plans, physical therapists on hand from the UFC Performance Institute, sauna suits and weight-cut tools delivered during fight week. It's a small thing on paper, but for a fighter chasing a title at 168, arriving in optimal shape matters.

The Sheeraz Rematch Looms

Make no mistake about what Berlanga actually wants, though. He said flatly that he was up on the scorecards against Sheeraz and that the Englishman knows it. He's chasing the rematch, and given Sheeraz's trajectory, the demand isn't outrageous — Sheeraz now sits at 23-0-1 with 19 KOs as the WBO super middleweight champion, most recently stopping Alem Begic in two rounds.

First, Butler. Berlanga knows a loss here effectively ends the comeback narrative before it starts, and a win over a legitimately heavy-handed opponent puts him right back in the top-10 conversation at 168. He said the only thing he wants to hear when the night's over is two words: "He's back." On Sunday at the Garden, he'll either earn them or he won't.