The July 12th New York City card has the following fights: Edgar Berlanga vs. Hamzah Sheeraz, Shakur Stevenson vs. William Zepeda, Aberto Puello vs. Subriel Matias, and David Morrell vs. Imam Khataev. This is a Ring Magazine card.
The reaction from fans on social media has been favorable, except for the Berlanga-Sheeraz fight, which will be a WBC super middleweight title eliminator. It’s believed to be the main event for the July 12th card. That’s hard for many fans to digest because neither deserves to be fighting in an eliminator to become Canelo Alvarez’s mandatory challenger. It reeks of favoritism and has nothing to do with sport.
Complete Card
- Edgar Berlanga vs. Hamzah Sheeraz
- Shakur Stevenson vs. William Zepeda
- David Morrell vs. Imam Khataev
- Alberto Puello vs. Subriel Matias
Mike Coppinger of The Ring revealed that info about the July 12th card, but he didn’t mention specifically who the main event will be. It doesn’t matter other than to know who the one bankrolling the card is favoring. Hamzah (21-0-1, 17 KOs) has never fought at 168, is unranked in the division, and is coming off a questionable 12-round draw against WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames.
It was thought that Sheeraz would clear up the controversy over the draw, which fans thought he lost, by fighting Adames in a rematch. But obviously that’s not going to happen now. It would be too risky for Sheeraz to fight Adames again ahead of a big-money fight against Berlanga to put himself in a position to challenge Canelo Alvarez for his unified super middleweight titles.
On paper, Shakur Stevenson’s defense of his WBC lightweight title against interim champion William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) is by far the best of the bunch in terms of interest. That’s a competitive one too, and there’s potentially a lot on the line for Shakur.