NEW YORK — Keith Connolly can’t envision Hamzah Sheeraz withstanding Edgar Berlanga’s power for more than half of their scheduled 12-round fight July 12.

The extremely confident contender whose career Connolly guides is one of the strongest super middleweights in boxing. Connolly also has questions about Sheeraz’s chin, especially since the British boxer has moved up from the middleweight limit of 160 pounds to the 168 division for their fight on The Ring’s pay-per-view show at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens.

Connolly’s confidence mirrored the self-assurance the brash Berlanga exhibited Thursday during a press conference at Palladium Times Square.

“It’s a huge fight for Edgar,” Connolly said. “Any time Edgar fights in New York, it’s a huge event. He’s popular here. He always sells out. I think it’s gonna be bombs away, as [Ring COO] Rick [Reeno] said earlier. I don’t see this fight going past five or six rounds. Sheeraz is a great fighter, but there’s levels to this sport. And he’s not on Edgar’s level. So, I think it’s gonna be a massacre July 12th. I see a violent knockout coming. … Our fight’s definitely gonna be the fight of the night. And expect an explosive knockout. And this will be a springboard for bigger things for Edgar going forward, later in the year.”

Berlanga-Sheeraz and Shakur Stevenson-William Zepeda are two of the four fights The Ring will showcase at one of the primary venues for the U.S. Open tennis tournament every summer. Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs), a three-weight world champion from Newark, New Jersey, will make a mandated defense of his WBC lightweight title against Mexican southpaw William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs).

In response to Connolly’s prediction Thursday, Spencer Brown, Sheeraz’s manager, explained why his fighter is comparably confident despite that he fought WBC middleweight champ Carlos Adames to a controversial split draw Feb. 22 at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“I spoke to Keith Connolly earlier in the back,” Brown said. “Just to reiterate what he said, Hamzah’s only gonna go six rounds. We’re coming into the lion’s den. He’s moved up to 168. He’s a very, very big guy, Berlanga, and he’s not gonna be easy to beat. But we think, with Hamzah Sheeraz, we will win this fight and we will win it comfortably.

“Because everybody thinks after that last fight that we dodged a bullet. But he broke his hand, he couldn’t make the weight. He makes the weight naturally now. He’s a 6-foot-4, big man at this weight. So, we think that we can definitely win the fight. And we’ve gotta come into the lion’s den to do it, because this is Berlanga’s territory. And we’re quite confident, actually.”

Sheeraz sustained a fracture in his left hand early in his 12-round bout against Adames (24-1-1, 18 KOs).

Brown and Sheeraz (21-0-1, 17 KOs) are certain that injury hindered his performance in a fight he narrowly won on the scorecard of judge Guido Cavalleri (115-114) and lost decisively according to judge Barry Lindenman (118-110). Judge Omar Mintun Sr. scored Adames-Sheeraz a draw, 114-114.

His struggles making weight for the Adames match convinced Sheeraz, The Ring’s No. 3-ranked middleweight contender, to move up eight pounds for this fight. Berlanga (23-1, 18 KOs) is ranked No. 9 in the super middleweight division by The Ring.