This is the second of a three-part series on the makings of Dmitriy Salita’s Big Time Boxing.
The focus this time is on the formation of the broadcast team, which includes Hall of Famer Al Bernstein, US Olympian and former titleholder Raul Marquez, and Corey Erdman.
“Boxing has such a deep essence, and I wanted a broadcast team that could truly capture and project that authenticity to the fans,” Dmitriy Salita said.
Marquez was a fixture on ShoBox: The Next Generation, and would call fights for Showtime on the Spanish telecast.
“Salita approached me and told me he is going to be doing a show, and it will be like ShoBox,” Marquez told BoxingScene. “He told me he’d like me to be one of the guys on the telecast.”
Erdman had a similar conversation, as he had worked with Salita before Big Time Boxing. Erdman recalled calling fights for the international feed of Salita’s YouTube channel in 2018.
“The timing worked out well. I was already a regular face on DAZN at that point,” Erdman said. “To me, it felt special to be part of something that felt like a continuation of the lineage of ShoBox. I really don’t feel like that is a line in a press release.”
The team is anchored by Bernstein, a broadcast veteran who called fights for ESPN and Showtime. Now, he is the pillar of Salita’s vision of an old-school telecast, which served as a place for up-and-comers to be showcased and a refuge for fans of a more intimate telecast. The program aims to tell the stories of these fighters while putting together competitive, evenly-matched bouts.
“I love working with both of these guys,” Bernstein said. “Corey Erdman is, in my opinion, the future voice of boxing… Raul Marquez has done a great job of making the transition from boxer to boxing broadcaster.”
Bernstein explained that it isn’t just the broadcast, but the endeavor of putting the piecing the final product together; From the director and the crew that selects the shots to tell the storyand that go with calling the action.
“I am there to enhance the experience,” Bernstein said. “I am not there to take it over. I am not there to call attention to me.”
The partnerships and the organic relationships helped the team develop chemistry. Often, the telecast gets enriched over time as the team gets to know each other better and develops deeper friendships.
“To me, it is a really fun endeavor,” Bernstein said. “Boxing broadcasting presents you with interesting challenges, and if you are working with people who are fun to work with and you are pleased with the product, it is one of the most enjoyable things.”
Erdman also emphasized that a major draw for him is the type of fights that are displayed on the platform. An example was on the previous card, a chaotic women’s middleweight bout for vacant unified titles between Olivia Curry and Kaye Scott. It is a climate that always allows Erdman to succeed. He loves boxing’s great stories, which often don’t feature the biggest names, and he can dig deeper on the undercard fighters.
“It is built around building prospects and making good fights,” Erdman said.
“We believe the most important thing is the fight in front of us,” Bernstein said. “Our mission is to concentrate on the fight in front of us, the fighters in front of us, and hope the fans enjoy it.”
One boxer who continues to get praise is lightweight Joshua Pagan, who fights on October 23 on their next telecast of “Big Time Boxing.” He takes on Maliek Montgomery in Puerto Rico. Pagan is 13-0 (4 KOs). Now, the 25-year-old Puerto Rican from Grand Rapids, Michigan, meets the 20-1 (18 KOs) Montgomery, who is coming off a surprising loss to Jeremy Hill in March. Pagan has organically been built into a main event fighter on the platform.
“One of the first fights we did was between Joshua Pagan and Roger Hilley,” Bernstein said. “They were both in exactly the same place in their career. That fight was fantastic…it set the tone for the series.”
“They have thrown different styles of fighters at him, and he has adjusted very well,” Marquez said of Pagan. “He has been tested the right way.”
Marquez is as old-school as they come. He uses his knowledge of the sport from his years in the amateurs to his run as a titleholder to guide his views on the various styles he has seen. Marquez references Erdman as a “boxing encyclopedia” and remembers how Bernstein covered his run-up into the Olympic Games.
“I like to break down what a fighter has to do to win,” Marquez said. “When I call the fight, I want to give the feeling like I am sitting in the living room with some guys shooting the shit and talking about boxing. I like to point out strategic things that fighters need to do; or things that I see that the regular boxing fan doesn’t see from a fighter’s perspective.
“It has happened a bunch of times where I say something and boom it happens. I still think like a fighter when I do the broadcast, that, along with training my son [Giovanni Marquez] and being around boxers all the time – I still think that way.”
The reverence for Bernstein is apparent from his two colleagues. Bernstein has called fights longer than most fight fans have been alive, and his longevity contributes to their overall success.
“The tapes that I would watch of the fights that occurred before I was born, it was his voice on them, too,” Erdman said. “It does feel surreal. It is hard to think of how this will benefit me down the road because, in a lot of ways, this is a dream.”
“If Al says good things about the show, you’ve got to believe him,” Marquez said. “He is a Hall of Famer.”
Meanwhile, Bernstein continues to think about what could make the telecast better.
“I try to think of myself as a consumer of boxing,” Bernstein said. “What is it that I want?”
“If you keep to the standard you set for yourself and you prepare properly, chances are you are going to succeed. Another thing is having a good time while you are doing it. I am such a believer in that. I love the process of broadcasting.”
While modern telecasts begin to incorporate more and more social media, flashy graphics, and sometimes lose the plot of the fighters themselves, Salita’s “Big Time Boxing” is a product that could have been from an earlier era. For Erdman, he is able to bridge a gap from his generation to the generation he grew up watching with the development series.
“I feel I relate best to people from a prior era of the sport,” Erdman said. “My dad still brings up how cool it is that I work with Al. To people of a certain age, the most impressive thing I have ever done is be on the air with Al and Raul, and in a lot of ways that is the case for me, too.”
