Miguel Berchelt and Micky Roman both picked up important wins at home in Mexico on separate cards Saturday night. This should set up a fight between the two later in the year.
As expected, Jonathan Victor Barros (41-6-1, 22 KOs) didn’t have much to offer his younger, bigger, better opponent in top junior lightweight and WBC titleholder Miguel Berchelt (34-1, 30 KOs) on the road in Yucatan, Mexico. The former featherweight titleholder probably was never good enough to hang with an elite fighter like the Mexican titleholder. Berchelt fought this fight pretty aggressively. He fights most fights relatively aggressively, but against other top fighters like Francisco Vargas and Takashi Miura there is a more measured approach to the high volume style.
Here there was no thinking in there whatsoever. Berchelt just attacked. It was a reckless approach in theory, but having such sizeable physical advantages against Barros really rendered traditional thinking moot here. Berchelt wobbled Barros with a jab at the very end of round one and then dropped him with a left hook while Barros was pulling straight back right at the end of the second round. The finish was kind of strange in the third. Berchelt had his challenger hurt and taking a count due to his gloves touching down. He flurried on the ropes to try to force a stoppage, but it didn’t come. Barros managed to get back to the middle of the right where it looked like he was caught and dropped by a right hand. The referee was rather strangely ruling it a push, however, as the Argentinian’s team rushed the ring to stop the fight on behalf of their fighter. Barros was upset and yelling at his team, but this obviously wasn’t going to end well for him. They did the right thing.
Meanwhile, in Juarez, Mexico, veteran action fighter Miguel “Micky” Roman (60-12, 47 KOs) held up his end of the bargain as well with a second round stoppage of unbeaten but untested Venezuelan opponent Michel Marcano (17-1-1, 14 KOs). Marcano had a size advantage in this one, but that was about it. Roman is forever vulnerable so a few right hands slipped through, but it hardly mattered. He ended it on a massive left hook to the body that collapsed the Venezuelan instantly to the canvas to take the full count. It was a perfect shot to finish the fight.
Now, in theory, Berchelt and Roman are on a collision course to meet for Berchelt’s title later this year. As long as he puts some tactics back in his game and doesn’t strictly brawl, Berchelt’s much more rounded skill set will likely carry that one. Yet, even if it ends up being a one sided decision on the cards, there is also no way it isn’t a fun watch in getting there. Roman is maybe the premiere action fighter in all of the sport right now in terms of pure entertainment value while Berchelt throws a notably high volume of punches too. I assume HBO would pick up the fight given their history with both men too, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.
