Berlanga vs. Butler Headlines Zuffa Boxing 09 at MSG — SkimNews
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- Edgar Berlanga (23-2, 18 KOs) faces Steven Butler (38-5-1, 32 KOs) in the 10-round middleweight main event at the Infosys Theater, with Berlanga installed as a -370 favorite at DraftKings.
- Berlanga is looking to rebound from a fifth-round knockout loss to Hamzah Sheeraz one year ago, after also going the 12-round distance in a 2024 PPV defeat to Canelo Alvarez.
- Richardson Hitchins (20-0, 8 KOs) moves up to welterweight to face Ricardo Salas (24-2-2, 18 KOs) in the co-feature, having vacated his IBF junior welterweight title upon signing with Zuffa in April.
- Butler knocked out Steve Rolls in the first round in 2024—the same Rolls who went the 10-round distance with Berlanga two years earlier—giving the 30-year-old Montreal native a recent blueprint against this style of opponent.
- A heated Thursday faceoff between Berlanga and Butler required the fighters to be separated, with Butler calling the fight "a bad decision from his team" given Berlanga's one year out of the ring.
- The undercard includes Otto Wallin (-225) vs. Vladyslav Sirenko at heavyweight and veteran Sergiy Derevyanchenko (+145) facing Jalil Hackett at middleweight, streaming on Paramount+ starting at 5 p.m. ET with the main card at 8 p.m. ET.
- CBS Sports picks: Berlanga via TKO8 and Hitchins via UD10.
Why it matters: Both Berlanga and Hitchins are trying to reset trajectories after high-profile setbacks—Berlanga riding back-to-back losses to Sheeraz and Canelo, Hitchins vacating a world title to test himself at a new weight—and Zuffa Boxing is using two Brooklyn-rooted stars to anchor its push into a marquee New York venue just six months into operation.
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