Rebuilding After The KO: Edgar Berlanga’s Difficult Comeback Journey

Trainer Stephen Edwards believes it’s going to be hard for Edgar Berlanga to come back from his knockout loss to Hamzah Sheeraz in a WBC 168-lb title eliminator last Saturday. He notes that Berlanga (23-2, 18 KOs) suffered a bad knockout and took a lot of hard shots from Sheeraz before being stopped in the fifth.

Berlanga’s Tough Road Back

Edwards says he thinks Berlanga will need to sit for a year recovering from the effects of the knockout before he’s ready to return to the ring safely. Luckily for Berlanga, he made millions from the Sheeraz and Canelo Alvarez fights. So, he can afford to sit inactive while he recovers.

Can Berlanga Recover?

“The guy was too tough for him,” said trainer Stephen Edwards to MillCity Boxing about Edgar Berlanga’s loss to Hamzah Sheeraz. “It’s going to be tough to come back from this. That was a bad knockout. He probably won’t fight again this year. Just think about how he fell and how his body was reacting and how his head was snapping back.”

Berlanga’s manager, Keith Connolly, will find easy options for him to slowly come back from this defeat. Predictably, it’ll be fighters similar to Berlanga’s opponent earlier this year, Jonathan Gonzalez-Ortiz. What will be hard for Edgar to adjust to is the drop in pay.

He’s been getting million-plus paydays in his last three fights, and that’s unlikely to happen if one of the major promoters doesn’t sign him. They would have to be willing to gamble on him and invest money, hoping for a return later on.

“That last right hand that the referee stopped it on. You can’t get hit no harder than that. He’s going to be out of the ring for a while,” said Edwards about the right hand that Hamzah finished Berlanga with in the fifth round.

Edgar’s Damaged Future

It was a big shot that Berlanga had no ability to defend against. He was so hurt, and he’d done a lousy job of blocking Sheeraz’s punches from the fourth due to his hand speed. He didn’t seem to realize how fast he was until it was too late. In hindsight, Berlanga should have been boxing, moving around, and not letting Sheeraz get close. That’s not his style, though. He was too heavy and fleshy to move his chunky body around the ring to preserve himself.

“I don’t know how we’re talking about him and Sheeraz. I think that’s a disservice to Crawford, talking about making a fight with Sheeraz and Canelo when I think Crawford is going to beat Canelo,” said Edwards.

It is premature for Turki Alalshikh to be talking about Hamzah Sheeraz fighting Canelo in February 2026, because there’s still a lot of doubt about the outcome of his fight with Crawford. This isn’t the same sure-thing win like in Alvarez’s last fight when he fought William Scull last May.

Sheeraz isn’t the best option for Canelo. There would be more interest from fans in a fight between Canelo and David Benavidez or a rematch with Dmitry Bivol than a clash against the still unproven Sheeraz.

While more fans in the U.S now know who Sheeraz is after his win over Berlanga, that’s the only notable win on his resume. Berlanga is viewed as a manufactured hype job, the handiwork of Top Rank and Matchroom with their soft soft matchmaking.

It’s pathetic that they created Berlanga to make him look better than he actually is by feeding him lesser opposition. It’s enlightening about the levels of what promoters stoop to for them to create a fake.