Berlanga vs Butler Headlines Zuffa Boxing 9 as Hitchins Steps Up at MSG

Zuffa Boxing is back in New York this Sunday, July 26, and it's brought a proper card with it. Edgar Berlanga meets Steven Butler in a super middleweight main event at the Infosys Theater inside Madison Square Garden, headlining Zuffa Boxing 9 — an eight-fight bill streaming on Paramount+ in the US, with prelims at 5pm ET and the main card rolling at 8pm ET.

The co-main event might be the most intriguing piece of business on the night. Richardson Hitchins — 20-0 with 8 knockouts and ranked No. 2 at super lightweight — jumps up to welterweight for a scheduled 12-rounder against Ricardo Salas. Hitchins is coming off the biggest statement of his career, an eighth-round TKO of George Kambosos Jr, and he'll be doing it in front of a hometown crowd.

The Main Event Stakes

Berlanga vs Butler is the marquee attraction, though, and it carries genuine upset potential. Butler, a Canadian knockout artist, arrives in the Big Apple with nothing to lose and heavy hands to swing. Berlanga headlining at MSG is exactly the kind of stage he's built his name on — but headliners with everything to lose have been caught before.

Hitchins moving up in weight is the storyline worth watching closely. Twenty fights, twenty wins, zero losses is a résumé that demands respect, but only eight of those wins have come inside the distance — he's a boxer who wins rounds, not a wrecking ball. Salas gets 12 rounds to test whether that slick, points-accumulating style travels seven pounds north.

Down the Card

Further down the main card, rising middleweight Jalil Hackett takes on Sergiy Derevyanchenko in a classic prospect-versus-veteran matchup. Derevyanchenko has been the measuring stick for a generation of 160-pounders, and Hackett gets his turn to see where he stands. These are the fights that either launch careers or quietly recalibrate them.

The prelims, kicking off at 5pm ET/2pm PT, feature five bouts spread across heavyweight, welterweight, featherweight and super featherweight — a decent cross-section of Zuffa Boxing's developing roster. It's the ninth event under the banner, and staging it at Madison Square Garden, even in the smaller Infosys Theater, signals where the promotion thinks it's headed.

Sunday night in New York, then: Berlanga defending his home turf, Hitchins testing new waters at 147, and a Canadian puncher hoping to crash the party. Every fight streams live on Paramount+ in the United States.