Berlanga is in the biggest fight of his life this weekend against Canelo in Vegas but comes from modest beginnings.
Berlanga is from New York and came up like a lot of fighters the hard way.
Speaking to Andre Ward on All The Smoke Podcast:
“So two weeks after I was born he (my father) went away for seven years (jail) and I fell in love with baseball. I knew about boxing because of my uncle but I fell in love with baseball first, you know I’m in the projects. It was like paradise stuff, I looked out the window and we probably had six projects surrounded by the park in the middle and I would see the kids playing baseball and stuff. I fell in love with baseball first. I jumped on two teams. When Pops came home I was playing ball then for some reason we was driving by the gym and he said yo, you want to go in this boxing gym? I seen a whole bunch of kids in the ring sparring and stuff and then my dad’s friend said, yo, you know you should bring your son man. My father was like, do you want to come to the gym and start training? I was like, yeah. He took me there man and from there it never stopped.”
The father seems to have played a close role in his career to date as an undefeated pro and is always near him in the training camp for Canelo too.
A strong team and one that is under no illusions about the challenge they are going in with in Canelo Alvarez but have zero fear of him either.
What a fight in store this weekend.
