NEW YORK – Steve Rolls has exercised caution while preparing for his fight against Edgar Berlanga on Saturday night.
The Canadian contender watched Marcelo Coceres exploit holes in Berlanga’s game, yet Rolls will approach the hard-hitting super middleweight carefully during their 10-round main event. Rolls realizes Berlanga trained for their fight in Las Vegas, where Brooklyn’s Berlanga believes he got better sparring than he might’ve experienced had he trained on Long Island, like usual.
Rolls also has taken into account that Berlanga suffered a torn left biceps during the third round of his 10-round, unanimous-decision victory over Coceres on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder undercard October 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I mean, I’ve seen holes,” Rolls told BoxingScene.com following a press conference Thursday at Madison Square Garden. “I’m aware of those holes, but I don’t wanna just bank on, ‘OK, he’s gonna do this again.’ Because, you know, he was out in Vegas, he had a different training camp with, I think he brought in some new trainers. So, he could’ve made some adjustments.
“So, if you focus only on that, and then you go base your game plan on that and he made an adjustment and it’s not there for you, then what do you do? Right? So, our main thing is just getting me in tremendous shape. I had tremendous sparring. I had an amazing camp [in Montreal]. And plus, I feel I can adapt. I think that’s what gonna serve me on Saturday night.”
ESPN will televise Berlanga-Coceres as the 10-round main event of a three-bout broadcast set to start at 10 p.m. ET from Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater.
Toronto’s Rolls, 37, has won both of his bouts by knockout since Gennadiy Golovkin knocked him out in the fourth round of their June 2019 bout at Madison Square Garden. Rolls (21-1, 12 KOs) has lost only to Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KOs), who remains a middleweight champion as he approaches his 40th birthday.
Berlanga, 24, has gone the distance in back-to-back bouts after knocking out each of his first 16 professional opponents in the first round.
Argentina’s Coceres (30-3-1, 16 KOs) scored a flash knockdown against Berlanga late in the ninth round. Berlanga seemed more annoyed than hurt when he suffered the first knockdown of a pro career he launched in April 2016.
He went on to beat Coceres by the same score, 96-93, on each card to remain unbeaten (18-0, 16 KOs). Bothered by his inability to make adjustments, even while fighting through a serious injury versus Coceres, Berlanga is determined to showcase skills he has yet to display during a professional fight.
“We’ll see Saturday night what he does,” Rolls said. “If he says he [can box], I guess we gotta take his word for it. We’ve yet to see it and he’s admitted himself that he hasn’t been able to make those adjustments. He says he can, so as of now, I’ll take his word for it and we’ll see Saturday night. And if it’s the same story, then …”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.