Canelo Alvarez is the clear favorite to defend his super middleweight title against Edgar Berlanga

Canelo Alvarez will once again enter Las Vegas as a heavy favorite to defend his super middleweight title. This time he will face Edgar Berlanga on September 14 at the T-Mobile Arena, and the odds are uneven even by Alvarez's standards.

Determining betting value on a fight against Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KO) can be difficult, but not impossible. Then there's Berlanga (22-0, 17 KO), who can talk well enough to drive ticket sales and pay-per-view buys, but is he a real threat as a big underdog? Let's take a closer look.

On paper, Berlanga isn't a great opponent for Alvarez, who has beaten far better fighters of late. Berlanga is young and brash, which always helps sell a fight, but he hasn't shown many signs of being able to beat a fighter of Alvarez's caliber over the course of a fight.

So Berlanga's best hopes for an upset rest on catching Alvarez with the right punch at the right time. The problem is that Alvarez has never been knocked down in a fight. And it's not because he's never faced opponents with serious punching power.

At 34 years old and over 60 professional fights under his belt, there's always the chance that Alvarez could show up and suddenly look old overnight, but it's not like he hasn't been active enough to give us regular glimpses of how he's handling the fight against Father Time. Alvarez has long averaged about two fights a year, always focused and ready to perform, with a style that ensures longevity.

Where things get interesting is whether Alvarez is capable of knocking out Berlanga. The -275 line for Alvarez at distance isn't nearly as much of a hindrance, but you have to remember that he hasn't stopped anyone in nearly three years.

However, Berlanga has some defensive gaps that Alvarez could exploit. The main question is whether Alvarez is willing to take risks and get aggressive enough to take out Berlanga or if he will be content with picking up his fourth straight points victory.

If the latter is the case, the +275 odds for an Alvarez win on points look attractive. Still, Berlanga is a tough young fighter in the biggest fight of his life, so expect him to be ready to fight. If Alvarez wants to get him out of there, it may have to happen later in the fight, through a steady process of attrition.