The top young knockout artist in all of boxing is at it again. Edgar Berlanga, a 23-year-old Brooklyn native, fought Ulises Sierra on Saturday night in Las Vegas in the undercard of the Shakur Stevenson-Toka Kahn Clary bill. Berlanga stepped into the ring looking to pick up a Round 1 knockout for the 16th time in his career. The thing that makes this so impressive is that this was the 16th professional fight Berlanga’s ever faced.
The past isn’t always a good indicator of the future, but in the case of Berlanga-Sierra, it was. The super middleweight fight did not get out of the first round, as Berlanga dropped Sierra three times to earn a first round TKO. Berlanga threw bomb after bomb during the bout, with the finishing sequence coming via a left hook to the side of Sierra’s head and a right that caught Sierra right between the eyes.
This first round was just mass destruction.
Good grief, @EdgarBerlangaJr.
#StevensonClary | ESPN pic.twitter.com/4VFw4fbZsG
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) December 13, 2020
At 2:41, this was nearly the longest fight of Berlanga’s professional career — he needed 2:45 to knock out Cesar Nunez at the end of 2019. The longest Round 1 KO streak to start a career is 21 by Ali Raymi, so while he’s climbing the ladder, he still has a bit of a way to go. Still, if The Chosen One keeps it up, he just might be able to break that record.