The good on B.A.D., and the innovative

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Inglewood, Calif., Mexican Miguel “El Alacran” Berchelt defended his super title against former titlist Takashi Miura in a good mainevent televised by HBO’s “ After Dark” program. Meanwhile, one state to the east, an improved broadcasting experience happened.

Miguel Berchelt is a good fighter who won his belt the right way – as a b-side, by knockout – but not a world champion so long as Vasyl Lomachenko can make 130 pounds and not a great Mexican , either, so long as there survive men who saw Marco Antonio Barrera or Erik Morales or Juan Manuel Marquez at that weight. Berchelt will experience some accumulating ambivalence about that; because of those three men casual fans now watch prizefighters who weigh 100 pounds less than those fans’ general preference, and because of those three men Berchelt will be judged by his merits more than his birthplace and judged to be considerably less than he thinks he is.

El Alacran came of age in Mexico when broadcasting logistics precluded the best Mexican fighters and their best fights from happening on public airwaves, which meant far fewer Mexican boys found a passion for boxing. More ambivalence for Berchelt: It is much easier for a talented prizefighter in this generation to get out of Mexico, but he is unlikely to fare nearly so well at the championship level as his predecessors did. If Berchelt’s path to a title had included a prime version of Barrera or Morales or Marquez, in other words, Berchelt would’ve remained an undercard gatekeeper very, very far from an HBO main event.

This is no criticism of his Saturday win. Berchelt found himself matched against a worn veteran who knew lots of tricks and years ago had better technique then Berchelt imposed the rude force of youth on his elder, exactly as one should. Berchelt adhered to his handlers’ strategy and made Miura move much more than a man of Miura’s age and resume wishes to anymore. Berchelt fought no more than he had to fight. That kept Miura discouraged from opening bell to closing. When things got rougher for Berchelt than he preferred he made appeals to the referee that received sympathy, including an uncommon timeout for rabbit punching.

Something about El Alacran, maybe his pleas to Raul Caiz Sr. or the wide punches or his neck tattoo, feels a bit fragile, alas. And he is way open to counters. That’s what gets one thinking about previous generations of Mexican prizefighters and the comparative cleanliness of their technique: Marquez never wasted a step, Barrera never floated his chin, Morales never threw an arm punch. These were men told from a very young age they could not expect to be the fastest or the strongest or even the toughest in a championship prizefight, and therefore they must employ at all times precision, economy and leverage. To see Berchelt bounce in wide circles and cock his chin much as he cocked his punches and swim forward flailing was to imagine how quickly a 130-pound might’ve raced through him.

If Berchelt never will rival Marco Antonio or Erik, in his best moments he does resemble slightly Juan Manuel’s little brother Rafael. Berchelt has Rafael Marquez’s frame and desire to win with his right hand but not quite Rafael’s matchstopping power.

Still, it’s proper to applaud HBO for the informal super featherweight tournament Boxing After Dark has hosted thus far in 2017. Though the network lost the division’s most talented fighter when departed for ESPN, the division’s most talented fighter lost most of the competition that could justify what hyperbolic acclaim he enjoys, too, and while Vasyl Lomachenko’s technical domination of contender-level competition already grows tired, ferocious combat between Latino and Asian prizefighters will not.

Writing of broadcasting: Saturday also comprised a card from Arizona that featured an innovative medium worthy of discussion. Roy Jones Jr. Boxing promoted a show presented on pay-per-view ($0.99) by Ultracast, a company specializing in 360-degree content. Effectively, Ultracast is a bunch of cameras pointing in different directions mounted above a single ringpost, with their various feeds stitched together in a way that allows a viewer to both zoom and roam his perspective in most every direction he could move his eyes were he similarly situated atop a ringpost.

I used the Ultracast app for Android on a Samsung Galaxy S8 phone, and despite the comparatively small screen it was a more rewarding experience than most fight-viewing parties and any sportsbar. It’s not a social way to partake of our beloved sport, but it exceeds the standard HDTV experience and rivals the ringside experience – and all previous jokes about stationing stepladders for visually impaired judges aside, it presents a surprisingly apt and innovative way to score fights more accurately.

What you experience is a static, unobstructed look at two fighters – no anxiously orbiting referee blocking you, no videogame-emulating camera switches from the production truck, no narrative-building replays between rounds. You see every punch (from an unfamiliar angle, yes, but still), you see the entirety of the fighters’ bodies – including, and most importantly for those who know what they’re watching, the fighters’ feet – and you see as far as the backdoor of a small arena and as near as a ringside doctor taking notes during an undercard match. If I were a trainer or fighter reviewing footage of a future opponent, it is absolutely the view I would wish to have.

Without seeing the hardware involved, one imagines it’s far less cumbersome than previous attempts with 3D, which means it might be a portable solution that complements Showtime’s recent modernization attempts with live sports on social media platforms (something HBO surely will adopt once AT&T finishes selling off its parent company’s assets). Take Ultracast, switch the commentary team for an enhanced arena-sounds audio feed, charge $0.99 for every fightcard in the land and $5 for world championships, and call it The Aficionados App: Eventually you could get a reliable $50/year from about 500,000 hardcore boxing fans. That might just be viable.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry