The latest in a long line of Matchroom debutants, Edgar Berlanga came through relatively unscathed in the past two weeks with a very wide points victory over Jason Quigley in his native New York. Talk has turned sharply to his next fight, former light middleweight world champion Jaime Munguia the top target.
“It is definitely the focus we are going to work on. We are both with DAZN and both want to deliver the best possible fights and Berlanga Vs Munguia is a tremendous fight.” Matchroom CEO Frank Smith said to ProBox TV News.
The openly, and cringeworthy at times, moments of discontent and abuse by the rival fighter’s promoters creates an interesting dynamic when Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom and Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy pit their stars against each other.
“With our business, we have a lot of people who work for our team and he has a lot of people who work for him.” Smith explained. “It doesn’t mean that everyone has to get along, but certain people within the two teams will. It won’t stop fights from happening I believe. You know Oscar is not out there negotiating every fighter's next move. There are people who worked for Golden Boy who do that, just like for our business, people have different relationships. I’m confident something can happen. Ultimately we are on the same platform and we want to deliver the biggest fights possible for DAZN. I laugh at a lot of the stuff coming out, but it is what it is.”
The noises coming from De La Hoya’s verified social media accounts verge on the impossible. Promoters and fighters will ultimately continue to add some extra spice to future fights that are far from the reality of these relationships. The message from Matchroom’s second in command was that it was business as usual.
The fight has been earmarked as Berlanga’s next bout ahead of John Ryder and Gennadiy Golovkin. Munguia comes off a narrow points victory over Ukraine’s Sergiy Derevyanchenko last month. You would imagine the winner would move themselves much closer towards a shot at Saul Canelo Alvarez.
