Miguel Berchelt vs. Mickey Roman a done deal for Nov.3 on ESPN+

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchelt will be defending his title against his mandatory challenger Miguel ‘Mickey’ Roman on November 3 on ESPN+ at a venue still to be determined, according to Dan Rafael. The potential venue for the fight is Los Angeles or Texas.

The 32-year-old Roman (60-12, 47 KOs) earned his title shot against World Boxing Council 130 pound champion Berchelt with a 9th round knockout win over a past his best 39-year-old Orlando Salido last December. Roman likely would have been beaten by Salido if the fight had taken place three years ago when he was still fighting at a high level.

Roman has won his las four fights since being sopped in the 12th round by former WBC super featherweight champion Takashi Mirua in January 2017. Roman was competitive in that fight, but he wasn’t able to handle the big punching power of Miura when he started sitting down on his shots in the later rounds. Roman couldn’t take the power from the Japanese fighter. In what could be a bad omen for Roman, Berchelt easily beat by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last year in July. Miura ended up retiring after the fight. The thing is, Berchelt beat Miura with ease. Just going by the differences in how the two fighters did against Miura, it suggests that Berchelt is going to beat Roman with embarrassing ease.

”Source says Top Rank has a signed contract from Mickey Roman for a title fight with 130-pound champion Miguel Berchelt Nov. 3 with LA and Texas as possible landing spots…great fight!” Lance Pugmire said of latimes.com.

Roman is a good fighter, but he has a lot of mileage from 15 years as a pro. Berchelt has arguably beaten better fighters than Roman in Francisco Vargas and Miura. There was a time earlier in Roman’s career in which he was viewed as being over-the-hill back in 2007 and 2008 when he was beaten four times between 2007 to 2009. Roman lost to Genaro Garcia, Jorge Solis, Eduardo Escobedo, Fernando Beltran, Miguel Beltran Jr. and Antonio Escalante. Roman won his last four fights in beating Nery Saguilan, Orlando Salido, Aristides Perez and Michel Mercano.

Berchelt has successfully defended his WBC title three times since beating Francisco Vargas by an 11th round knockout in January 2017. In Berchelt’s two successful title defenses, he’s blown out Maxwell Awuku and Jonathan Victor Barros by 3rd round knockouts. Roman will give Berchelt more of a fight than those guys, but he still is going to be out of his league against him. Berchelt, 26, is a lot younger than Roman, and he has the boxing skills and power to make this a very easy fight.

Berchelt is likely going to box circles around Roman and make him look bad. Top Rank should put this fight on regular ESPN instead of ESPN+. This isn’t a good enough match-up for it to be on ESPN+. Roman still has unfinished with Miura. Top Rank should get Miura to come out of retirement, because Roman is not going to do well against a talented fighter like Berchelt.

Berchelt vs. Roman is a good basic fight, but I don’t see it as worthy of being on a $5 subscription service like ESPN+. Roman was batted around the ring by Miura last year, and that was the last time he fought a quality opponent. Roman’s win over Salido was meaningless due to how old and shot looking the 39-year-old was at the time of the fight. Roman hasn’t fought a good super featherweight since his loss to Miura, It would have been nice to see Roman fight the likes of Alberto Merchado, Gervonta Davis, Masayuki Ito and Tevin Farmer. I think all of those guys would beat Roman.