*Bernardo Mercado* EL PRIMER PESO PESADO COLOMBIANO*

[sweetviolenturge]

yeah, but did you watch only The major TV networks back in the 1970's ABC,CBS,NBC) ?
Back then there were regional television networks that showed Boxing shows and broadcast only in that part of the country.
Before everything went digital in the early 2000's,We had a satellite dish
and we were able to watch boxing telecasts from California (Fight Night at the Forum)
regional boxing shows from places like Colorado, and Florida (The Sunshine Sports Network)
BTW I think the Cobb vrs Mercado fight was shown,I seem to remember the staredown most of all for some reason,
ABC use to have three-hour primetime boxing shows back then(on weekdays),did you live on the West Coast ?
maybe they just didnt show the first hour of the broadcast there.

Yes, sir, I'm only speaking about nationally televised fights.
It wouldn't at all surprise me if Mercado did fight on smaller telecasts for the markets that he fought in such as the Olympic Aud in LA, those times that he fought in MSG etc.. It would be great if some of those tapes actually survived & were eventually released.
As for the Mercado vs Cobb bout, it wasn't broadcast here on the east coast. Unfortunately, I remember wanting to see it very badly but the Holmes - Snipes only featured the Michael Dokes vs George Chaplin fight on the undercard. Which was a shame because that fight was as dull as dishwater as I recall & the Mercado vs Cobb was a good old fashioned slobber-knocker. But, perhaps it was televised in other areas of the country.
I remember seeing that stare down as well though. As well as some extended highlights of the bout. Now that I think of it I believe that ABC showed those highlights that night to those that hadn't seen it live.
Also, they showed highlights from it again during the pre-fight build up for the Holmes-Cobb telecast on ABC in November of '82.

[Caractacus]

yeah,you're probably right,it was most likely the high-lights of Cobb vrs Mercado that I remember seeing some 40 years ago.
However they obviously taped the entire fight probably if the other fights ended early.

[sweetviolenturge]

Yep. It's just too bad that so few fights are available for Mercado. He really was a colorful guy & an exciting fighter. Hell, he's one of only a handful of fighters to get up off the canvas to beat Shavers. I think the only others are Ron Lyle, James "Quick" Tillis & of course, Holmes.

And yeah, I know what you mean about taxing your memory banks for info from 40 years ago. It can be tough. But, in a lot of cases, it's easier than recalling some fights from just last year or so. For me, anyhow. There's so much so easily available to us these days that it can be easy to take for granted. Back then, to me anyhow, it seemed like the events were just that, events. For instance, I recently just watched the Holmes-Snipes fight & I was surprised at just how vividly I still recalled it.

[Caractacus]

i'm sure tho that I remember Bernardo Mercado being interviewed with his manager Joe Conforte on one of the sports shows.
I remember Joe Conforte because he was the owner of the infamous Mustang Ranch in Reno Nevada.
They were discussing Mercado's chain smoking habit and how he was trying to kick it among other things.
I thought the interview was before the Shavers vrs Mercado bout.

[Caractacus]

Here is a link to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)TV and Radio archives.
From what I understand so far they only have a fraction of their material on-line ,so if they have any boxing matches still in the
archives,
it may not show up in the search there right now ,but maybe if you ask them perhaps someone will go look.

http://archives.cbc.ca/

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