It was a violent affair in El Paso.
On a night that top junior lightweight Miguel Berchelt (35-1, 31 KOs) is already calling the most difficult of his career, the elite Mexican had to empty the arsenal to get fellow countryman Miguel “Micky” Roman (60-13, 47 KOs) out of the ring last night on ESPN+. Roman was the crowd favorite. He showed off his planet sized heart and some power early, but over the duration of the fight he was simply outclassed.
The fight started promising enough for him though. I thought Berchelt won the first round, but it was a back and forth affair with both guys getting solid work in. It was the early stages of the main event’s second round that became Micky’s high water mark. Not once, but twice Roman landed beautiful power shots off the counter that clearly stunned the champion. Berchelt regained control by the end of the round to land a powerful flurry of his own, but it wasn’t enough to win back the round.
Everything changed in round three. A long left hook badly hurt Micky Roman. He was beaten around the ring and at one point fell to the canvas, though it was ruled a slip. A man with normal levels of heart and passion would have been finished then and there. Not Micky Roman though. In fact, he not only made it to the bell, but he came out and was reasonably competitive in round four comparatively.
The fifth was even better for the 70+ fight veteran. It was the first time the fight seemed at least close to even since the middle of the second round. Berchelt was still lighting him up at times, but he was also eating solid right hands in return.
Though the finish would come in round nine, I’d argue it started in the sixth frame of the fight. Miguel delivered such a devastating right hand that he and I both thought the fight was over then and there. Berchelt jumped on the ropes to celebrate and I started writing the headline for this recap. How silly of us to doubt Micky Roman. Against what looked possible, the tough as nails Mexican rose on his unsteady legs and tried to go back to work. Unfortunately, he was put down again with seconds left in the round.
Yet, there he was once again in the seventh. This round continued the beating, though not quite at the same fever pitch. That intensity waited to return until round eight. At this point it was clear that the fight could and probably should have been stopped at any moment. Micky was trying to do his best Terminator impression by never stopping coming forward to complete the objective no matter the damage sustained, but he is still a man. The damage was becoming intense. It took another ninth round knockdown and almost three more minutes of savagery before the referee saved him with two seconds to go in the ninth. To be fair, however, it was a difficult fight for the referee to find a stoppage in. Micky never stopped throwing back.
The fight was too one sided to become the classic that everyone was hoping it could be, but it was certainly a ferocious affair. I spent too much of it nervous for Roman though to have enjoyed it enough to really put it in the fight of the year discussion. Some will though, I am sure.
Miguel Marriaga (27-3, 23 KOs) put forth a sort of ho-hum performance in the co-main event. The Colombian controlled above average journeyman Jose Estrella (20-15-1, 14 KOs) after a competitive first round on body work and ultimately finished him with the same shots in the fourth. Estrella is better than his entirely pedestrian record suggests, but there is still a reason he has double digit losses. After a somewhat competitive loss to Oscar Valdez and a one sided stoppage defeat against Vasyl Lomachenko, Top Rank is bringing the potential contender back up slowly. That’s a normal decision, but it isn’t one that is going to make for a compelling co-main event.
