Jesse Hart, Berlanga, Devin Alexander discussed on SI Boxing with Chris Mannix
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Celtics warriors go 7, I'm going to fly to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Ah, look at you. This is two live non disowned boxing events that I'm going to see Chris mannix at less than a month. It is a miracle. That's right. I was at tank Davis, roly Romero, archer better BF Joe Smith, who knows. Maybe I'll show up at like a club show in South Florida at some point. Just popping in, left and right, ready to go. Maybe I'll go up to California and see chop chop corley back in action. I think he's like 73 and getting ready to fight at welterweight. Devin Alexander. I've never Alexander, I think. It's like it's 2004, you know? Somebody's going to stop chop chop corley from fighting. Crazy. Stop. I don't care. I don't care if he's fighting Devin Alexander B needs to stop fighting. All right, lot to get into with you, Keith and we are going to talk about better be of Smith, which is a fantastic fight. You know, must see TV for as long as it lasts. But I want to look back to a couple of fights we saw this past weekend. In New York City, you had Edgar berlanga winning a decision against Roma and gulo. He won decisively on the scorecards, but it was a fourth straight opponent that went the distance with Edgar berlanga, who has not looked like the power punching potential star that we saw for his first 16 fights when he picked up all those first round knockouts. What did you think of Berlin's performance, which included a Mike Tyson esque bite of the shoulder of Roma Romero gulo that could have gotten him disqualified if the referee had seen it the way the transpired. Yeah, and I think the only reason he wasn't admonished during the fight Chris was because Ricky Gonzalez, the referee did not see him do it, where he was positioned. He was trying to separate them and he didn't see berlanga try to bite him. Or he would have I'm assuming he would have taken a point away from him at that point. I mean, how could you not, really? It's such a rare occurrence. I think that's going to draw a suspension and or a fine probably a suspension and a fine. From the New York State Athletic Commission and rightfully so. So Berlin won't be able to fight in New York probably for about 6 months if I had to guess. The performance itself, I thought the fight was closer than they had it on the scorecards, Chris, they had it. I think it was 99 91 on two scorecards and 99 92 on the other. I thought it was a closer fight than that. I had it 96 94 for balenciaga at ringside, you know, sometimes at ringside, you get a different look than you get on television, maybe it was a little wider on TV, but I didn't think that he won, but I wasn't all that surprised that he didn't knock out Alexis and gulo because angulo, while he's been stopped once by David Benavidez. It wasn't a clean knockout. The fight was stopped after it was a very one sided fight that was stopped after the tenth round. It wasn't a situation where he got blasted out of there by Benavidez or knocked down several times or anything. So he's a pretty durable guy. So I'm not really surprised that he went the distance. And he's a pretty good even though he's 38 years old. He's a pretty big puncher. So I think berlanga had to be careful with him to some extent. He worked with a new trainer for the first time and Juan de Leon. I think his conditioning was better because he seemed to be more active in the later rounds and more willing to box in the late rounds than he was against Steve rolls, who's a much lesser puncher. And I think a lot of the criticism from the rolls fight is that he didn't try to get Steve rolls out of there in the later rounds. I think he had a little more, a little better conditioning in this fight. What I would say, Chris about berlanga is I think because he knocked out his first 16 opponents in the first round. Or maybe some unrealistic expectations attached to his name. And that's going to come when you have a lot of hype. I mean, that's kind of happened. So while he's not as good as maybe people were trying to make him out to be when he knocked out 16 guys in the first round of a row, he's not as bad maybe as people are making it seem to be at this point either. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You know, because now the tide is completely turned against him. And people are saying, oh, well, you can't knock out Steve rolls, you go the distance with angulo. Maybe you're not this heavily high prospect. They're not as good as this heavily high prospect that was coming up the ranks. When the reality is, he's winning these fights by wide decisions. He beats up Steve roles. He does get knocked down against close, two fights earlier, but he got up to win that fight rather convincingly. So it's not like he's in danger of losing many of these fights, but maybe he's not maybe he's not the kind of puncher we thought he was going to be. Maybe we kind of thought he was going to be a Benavidez like puncher or a better be of like puncher in his weight class. I'm not sure he's that or ever going to be that. And I guess my take on the future of Berlin is like they talk a lot about the Jesse Hart fight, it's been discussed for over a year. I really like that fight for Berlin. It's kind of a sink or swim type of fight. I mean, Jesse Hart's only lost at the highest level, zerda Ramirez Joe Smith. He's not great by any stretch, but if Jesse Hart can make one 68, I'd make that fight and see what Berlin has got. What do you think of a fight with Jesse Hart? I know that's a fight that top rank is very interested in making. They wanted to make it for this past Saturday night. They wanted to make it for March 19th. I mean, they've been trying to make that fight for a while. Top rank used to be Jesse Hart's promoter, of course, bob arum has an affection for Jesse Hart because he cyclone Hart's son. And they work with him for a long time. And his losses are respectable losses to two points losses to Alberto Ramirez and to Joe Smith, who later became the wbo light heavyweight champion. So there's no shame in the losses on Jesse arts record. Jesse Hart, it's a back end of the top 15 type of contender, probably. And if you're Edgar berle and you can't beat Jesse Hart, well then where are you going, really? I mean, so that's a reasonable test for him to take. I've been led to believe that that will not be the next fight for Edgar berle, although it's a fight that I know top rank wants. We'll have to see how it plays out here over the next few months because he won't fight until December at the earliest because as I mentioned earlier, Chris, he's probably going to be suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission for 6 months. He could potentially fight in Puerto Rico maybe in December. But maybe he doesn't fight until the beginning of 2023. So you want to see him take these incremental steps up in opponents, but at this point, Edgar berlinger is, I guess, you know, a back end of the top 15 type of contender, I guess. I mean, he's not certainly not David Benavidez or fighter anywhere near on that level. And I think, you know, his handlers realized that and they want to be careful when moving him forward. There's some push and pull, I guess, or a tug of war, so to speak with top rank in terms of how quickly they step him up to the level of opponents at top rank wants to see him fight. And I think that's what we'll see play out over the next few months. Yeah, I think it's time. And you're not putting him in with David Benavidez. You're putting me in with Jesse Hart. And Jesse Hart is a good fighter, but not some superpower puncher. He's awkward. I think that's the fight where we see it berlenga is ready for top level opponents. At some point he's going to have to face a Jesse Hart, whether it's next fight, the fight after that, he's got to get in the ring with somebody either heart or of that ilk. So whoever's against it, berlanga is manager Keith Conley is training team. I understand maybe you want to get a second fight with your new trainer to continue to develop chemistry with him, but it's time Frederick blanket to step up and take a legitimate fight or legitimate top 15 top 20 type of opponent. Also on Saturday Keith, we had Jaime mongeau beating up on the latest over matched opponent that has been put in front of Jaime McGee. Jimmy Kelly fought well for four rounds. I thought he kind of confused. Confused mongeau, tagged him a few times, but then mongeau turned on the jets in the 5th round, not Jimmy Kelly down three times and eventually the fight was waved off. I don't even want to talk about the fight itself, Keith.