Edgar Berlanga improves and cancels Jason Quigley at the Garden

ESPN DigitalJune 24, 2023, 6:45 PM ETReading: 4 min.

Edgar Berlanga: King of the KO in the first round

Edgar Berlanga started his career with 16 straight wins, all of which were stopped in the first round.

Super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga took one step closer to his goal of a world championship belt by defeating Irishman Jason Quigley by unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The judges voted 116-108, 116-108 and 118-106 in favor of Berlanga, who sent the European to the canvas 3, 5 and twice in round 12.

“I’ll give myself a C,” Berlanga said of his performance in a post-fight interview. “He knew I was going to fight. Everyone who came up against me knew I hit hard. He went into the ring to survive.”

Berlanga started bravely against a fearsome Quigley, who was more concerned with surviving than winning the fight. As the rounds progressed, the Puerto Rican-American slowed down. That set up allowed the European fighter to gain some confidence and land some good shots.

In the last round, Berlanga came out aggressively, knocking his opponent down twice, but he didn’t have time to chloroform the victory, which he could have accomplished if he had kept his foot on the accelerator throughout the fight. .

“I was looking for a knockout. But he knows how to survive,” said the 26-year-old, who goes by the nickname The Season One. “I won in the end and that’s all that really mattered.”

Berlanga was not included in the top ten 168-pound fighters ESPN’s division rankings and his fair-but-pretty display keep him out of that select group.

However, Berlanga assured that “I want to fight the best (Jaime) Munguia, GGG (Gennady Golovkin), those types of fighters.”

Berlanga brought his undefeated record to 21-0-0, 16 KO’s. Meanwhile, Quigley left his record at 20-3-0, with 14 KOs.

Cusumano sends Kowanaki in a power-to-power struggle

In a fight that had fierce exchanges and at times kept the crowd on their feet, American Joe Cusumano knocked out Poland’s Adam Kaunacki in the eighth round in the heavyweight division.

At 2:00 of the eighth round Cusumano rushed into the ring asking for a rally of blows from Doctor and Pole in the corner to end the match.

The Italian-born boxer’s win over Rocky Kaunaki puts him in a good position in the sport’s most glamorous division, although he is still a long way from superstars like Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, who hold four world belts.

This is Cusumano’s third straight win after a knockout loss to top contender Daniel Dubois in August 2021.

Kowanaki lost twice in the first round, but rallied to drop Cusumano with powerful head and body shots. Despite the effort, the Pole was unable to prevent a losing streak that stretched to four, losing his unbeaten professional bout against Robert Helenius in March 2020.

The 35-year-old Cusumano improved his professional record to 22-4-0, 20 KO. The 34-year-old Kowanaki is 20-4-0 with 15 KOs.