This wasn’t the type of drama Edgar Berlanga had hoped for on Saturday night.
The highly touted super middleweight prospect found himself on the canvas after a ninth-round knockdown, but he battled back to defeat a resilient Marcelo Coceres in their 10-round bout at T-Mobile Arena. While Brooklyn’s Berlanga won by unanimous decision, going the distance with Coceres—whom Billy Joe Saunders had previously stopped—and getting knocked down raised concerns about Berlanga’s future potential.
Despite Coceres exposing some defensive vulnerabilities, judges Eric Cheek, Patricia Morse Jarman, and Ricardo Ocasio all scored the fight 96-93 in Berlanga’s favor on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder undercard.
Berlanga (18-0, 16 KOs) entered the ring as a heavy 60-1 favorite, according to Caesars Sportsbook. However, the durable Coceres (30-3-1, 16 KOs) became the second consecutive opponent to push Berlanga the full distance.
Berlanga, 24, gained widespread attention for knocking out his first 16 professional opponents in the opening round. That streak ended in his previous fight when Demond Nicholson took him the eight-round distance on April 24 in Kissimmee, Florida.
Coceres’ most notable achievement before Saturday was giving Billy Joe Saunders a tough test in their WBO super middleweight title bout two years prior. Saunders (30-1, 14 KOs) was trailing on one scorecard before scoring an 11th-round knockout at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
By the start of the 10th round, Berlanga appeared to have fully recovered from the knockdown late in the ninth round. Earlier, a right uppercut from Berlanga forced Coceres
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