On a steamy night in Queens where the ghosts of Louis Armstrong and neighborhood street fights seemed to hum in the humid air, Hamzah Sheeraz didn’t just arrive—he detonated. And somewhere between the second knockdown and the referee waving it off like a man tired of watching a car crash, you realized: Sheeraz isn’t the same kid who got punked by Carlos Adames. That version died back in February. This one? This one had Andy Lee in his corner and murder in his gloves.
It was billed as bad blood. What it became was a public execution under stadium lights, and Edgar Berlanga was the body left twitching on the altar.
The stats will tell you Sheeraz landed 62 punches to Berlanga’s 46. That he connected on 43.7% of his power shots. But stats don’t tell the story. You had to see Berlanga’s eyes glass over like a man remembering a debt he can’t pay. You had to hear the crowd deflate, row by row, as their hometown hammer got bent into scrap metal by a 6’3” Brit with long arms and longer memory.
Because this fight wasn’t just about momentum. It was about redemption, about shaking the stench of that Adames draw off like last week’s booze sweat. Sheeraz had looked lost back then—confused, hesitant, like a man who left his courage in the sauna. But tonight, he looked sharp, surgical, and mean. The way fighters look when they know they’ve been doubted.
And then there’s Berlanga.
Once hailed as Puerto Rico’s next bloodletter, Berlanga came into this one talking tough, chest puffed and legacy in hand. Two fights removed from being fed to Canelo and spit out like gristle, he needed this win. Instead, he got dragged. His jab looked like a man swatting flies. His footwork? Like trying to dance drunk in combat boots. Sheeraz made him look like a cardboard cutout of his old self, one that forgot how to duck.
Round 4 was where the walls caved in.
Sheeraz started picking his shots like a man at a deli counter—jab, right hand, hook to the liver. Berlanga hit the canvas like a sack of bad decisions. He got up grinning, gloves banging, the universal signal for “I’m screwed but I still have teeth.” That lasted maybe 15 seconds before he was horizontal again.
By Round 5, Sheeraz could smell blood—and not the kind that pumps honorably through the veins, but the kind that trickles when your career starts coughing up its own resume. A left hook, a right straight, and Berlanga was down for the third and final time. He didn’t protest. You can’t protest gravity.
The Andy Lee Effect
Credit where it’s due: Andy Lee has polished Sheeraz into something dangerous. The combinations flowed like jazz. The footwork was tight. The jab was more than just a rangefinder—it was a razor. You don’t walk into someone’s backyard, knock over their mailbox, and make yourself a sandwich in their kitchen unless you’ve got a corner man who knows how to tame the demons.
Under Lee’s watch, Sheeraz didn’t just survive—he evolved. He kept the reach, lost the hesitation, and found the kind of timing that turns fights into statements.
But Let’s Be Honest: Was Berlanga Ever That Good?
It’s the question nobody wants to ask out loud. Berlanga racked up 16 straight knockouts against a carousel of cab drivers and seasonal warehouse workers. The moment he fought real competition, the mystique started bleeding out.
He beat Jonathan Ortiz in March—but Ortiz looked like he wandered into the wrong locker room. And before that? He was handled by Canelo with the same care you’d use swatting a housefly. Maybe Berlanga was a mirage. Or maybe Sheeraz made him one.
A Star Is Rising, But The Sky’s Still Crowded
With the super middleweight division stacked like an overcrowded bar at last call—Sheeraz just cracked the door open. But he did it with a performance that made you lean forward and take notes. He didn’t just win. He announced himself.
Sheeraz is now 22-0-1 with 18 knockouts. And he just turned a grudge match into a resume reel.
There’s still polish needed. Still questions to answer. But if this was Sheeraz’s reintroduction, then consider the message received.
Because in boxing, the difference between promise and proof is simple: you either knock the door down or keep knocking. Tonight, Sheeraz didn’t knock. He kicked it off the goddamn hinges.
And Berlanga? He’s going to be pulling Sheeraz’s combinations out of his dreams for months. That’s if he sleeps at all.
