However, on the floor at Madison Square Garden's Infosys Theater, staring up at its bright lights, is where Berlanga found himself in the second round of his Zuffa Boxing 09 main event clash with Steven Butler, courtesy of a right hook from the Canadian.

Luckily for Berlanga, he didn’t allow that early scare to define the rest of the evening. In the end, Berlanga’s resiliency paid off as he managed to stop Butler in the seventh.

Now that it’s over, Berlanga (24-2, 19 KOs) says he wasn't hurt when he went down.

“It was a good shot,” Berlanga admitted in the post-fight press conference. “It was a good hook. But I’m a warrior man. Shook it off and got right back to it. I was good, I wasn’t hurt or anything.”

From the moment he hit the canvas onwards, the fight was a war. But unlike his July 2025 bout against Hamzah Sheeraz, where he was dropped and stopped in the fifth round, Berlanga managed to turn things around.

Berlanga, however, knows that there are other ways to win a fight.

The former title challenger has watched his good friend and pound-for-pound star Shakur Stevenson master the art of hit and don’t get hit.

All in all, Berlanga believes he can make some of his nights much easier than they have been. However, where’s the fun in that?

“I love IQ,” Berlanga admitted. “I love the styles of Shakur, the Andre Ward’s, but the crowd loves a big tough fight. When you get dropped and then you come back and stop an opponent. They love it.”