Edgar Berlanga got the exact kind of chaos Zuffa Boxing wanted in New York. He did not get a neat little confidence-builder at Zuffa Boxing 09. He got dropped, dragged into a scrap, and still found the clubbing finish against Steven Butler at The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Watch the official finish clip below.
ALL-ACTION FIGHT 🍿
Highlights from Edgar Berlanga’s stoppage win over Steven Butler 💥 pic.twitter.com/w8Nn0uKeHo
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) July 27, 2026
The ringside view of Edgar Berlanga’s stoppage victory in his Zuffa Boxing debut 👏 pic.twitter.com/v4CLmYAZYb
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) July 27, 2026
Berlanga, now 24-2 with 19 knockouts, stopped Butler in Round 7 after eating real danger in Round 2. Butler, who fell to 38-6-1, crashed a right hand into Berlanga late in the second and put the Brooklyn super middleweight on the floor. For a second, the comeback party had that awkward silence where everyone realizes the underdog brought a hammer.
Then Berlanga remembered he is built more for smoke than for spreadsheets. He came out in Round 3 throwing mean right hands and left hooks, hurting Butler badly enough that the Canadian spent long stretches holding, moving, surviving, and at one point turning the whole thing into a half-grappling exchange. It was messy, violent, and very much not the sterile rebuild fight some expected after Berlanga’s rough run around Canelo Alvarez and Hamzah Sheeraz.
Berlanga Turned A Scare Into A Statement
The swing rounds were nasty. Berlanga had Butler buzzed in the third, slowed in the fourth, then hurt him again in the fifth with the kind of heavy right hand that makes judges suddenly sit up straight. Round 6 finally cracked Butler for real, with Berlanga landing a late barrage and dropping him with left hooks near the end of the session.
Butler’s corner gave him a short leash before Round 7, and referee Eric Dali did not need long to see enough. Berlanga clipped Butler with another hook, followed with a combination, and forced the stoppage at 1:14 of Round 7. The official cards at the time had Berlanga ahead 57-55, 58-54 and 57-55, which tracks with a fight that started as a boxing assignment and turned into a bar fight with gloves.
Afterward, Berlanga leaned straight into the redemption angle. He said, “I’m a true champion,” and added that he wanted to prove he was back by taking on a dangerous puncher. He also name-dropped the big-game options at 168 pounds, including a Hamzah Sheeraz rematch, Jaime Munguia, Chris Eubank Jr., Jermall Charlo and Caleb Plant.
That Sheeraz name matters because Berlanga’s last image before this was not pretty. He was knocked out by Sheeraz last year, and the super middleweight picture has kept shifting around title politics and belt drama. Berlanga needed something with bite here. He got it, even if Butler made him pay a toll first.
The co-main was a different kind of violence. Richardson Hitchins moved to welterweight and blanked Ricardo Salas by three 100-90 cards, controlling the range with his jab and making a hard reset at 147 pounds look almost rude. Between Berlanga’s firefight and Hitchins’ shutout, Zuffa’s boxing push left New York with a highlight-reel main event and another reason for the 168-pound crowd, including names around Caleb Plant’s orbit, to keep watching.
