Hitchins Headlines MSG Undercard as Zuffa Boxing 09 Weights Land

Zuffa Boxing rolls into Madison Square Garden this Sunday, July 26, and the fighters have officially made weight for ZB09 at the Infosys Theater. The nine-event promotion returns to New York with a super middleweight main event between Edgar Berlanga and Steven Butler, but the name that jumps off the card is Richardson Hitchins, the unbeaten 20-0 super lightweight ranked No. 2 in his division.

Hitchins headlines the co-feature in a scheduled 12-round welterweight bout against Ricardo Salas. For a fighter who's spent his career at 140, this is a jump north on the scales and a chance to prove the power carries. Eight of his 20 wins have come by knockout, but the more telling number is the streak: zero losses across a full pro career.

That perfect record got a serious stamp of approval last time out. Hitchins stopped George Kambosos Jr. via eighth-round TKO, the kind of statement win that turns a prospect into a genuine problem for the division. Kambosos is a former unified champion, and finishing him inside the distance is not a line you pad your résumé with lightly.

The Brooklyn crowd will be firmly in Hitchins' corner Sunday, and that matters. Fighting at MSG in front of a hometown audience adds pressure, but it also adds fuel. Hitchins has spoken this week about making up for lost time, a nod to a career that's been more measured than the talent probably warranted.

Salas, for his part, isn't reading from the same script. The challenger has framed this as an upset waiting to happen, the exact mindset you want from a road fighter walking into someone else's building. He's got nothing to lose and a New York spoiler story to write if he can pull it off.

Berlanga's Comeback Test

Up top, Berlanga faces Butler at super middleweight in the main event. Berlanga has been selling this fight as a comeback, which tells you plenty about where his stock sits after a rocky stretch. Butler, meanwhile, has been the quieter of the two all week, content to let his opponent do the talking before he breaks cover on fight night.

The stylistic read is straightforward enough. Berlanga's reputation was built on early finishes, but the questions have piled up whenever fights drift into the later rounds. Butler is the kind of durable, awkward operator who can turn a showcase into a grind, and if he drags Berlanga into deep water, the comeback narrative gets complicated fast.

Gatekeeper Duty

The third fight worth circling is a middleweight scrap between rising contender Jalil Hackett and veteran Sergiy Derevyanchenko. It's a classic gatekeeper test. Derevyanchenko has shared the ring with the division's best over the years, and beating him means something specific: it means you belong.

For Hackett, that's the entire point. Get past a seasoned name like Derevyanchenko and the ranking conversation opens up. Lose, and it's a reminder that experience still counts for plenty when the levels rise.

The full card streams on Paramount+, with prelims kicking off at 5PM ET / 2PM PT and the main card following at 8PM ET / 5PM PT. That's a long night of boxing, but the structure is smart — pile the intrigue onto one bill and let the crowd stay hot into the headliners.

What's at Stake for Hitchins

What's really at stake here is Hitchins' trajectory. A clean win at welterweight against a live opponent, in his own city, would give him a foot in two weight classes and a strong argument for a title shot wherever he decides to plant himself. The No. 2 ranking already puts him in the mix; a finish Sunday would make him impossible to route around.

The flip side is the risk of moving up before you've cashed in at your natural weight. If Salas' confidence turns out to be more than talk, an unbeaten record and a division ranking can look very different by Monday morning. That's the tension that makes this a better co-feature than the top line suggests.

Weights are in, the theater is set, and the storylines are stacked. Come Sunday, Berlanga chases redemption, Hitchins chases a division-jumping statement, and Salas chases the upset nobody outside his camp is picking. New York tends to reward the fighter who wants it loudest.