Watching a fight through a broadcast provides a clean, if limited, view of the action. Broadcasters offer a narrative to guide you through the rounds. They note which punches land and often how hard, and sometimes an unofficial scorer gives their take on who is winning. Microphones pick up various noises clustered around the ring. Punch stat updates make themselves available throughout the fight. It’s not a bad way to follow a boxing match and could even be called educational at the best of times.

But there’s also a lot you don’t catch (like everybody swarming Juan Manuel Marquez after the card, the author of the most spectacular and consequential knockout of the last 15 years). Though I’d taken in fights through all manner of streaming services and copious highlight packages on YouTube, I’d yet to make it to a ringside seat. That changed in Philadelphia last weekend, as did the watching experience I had grown accustomed to. Here’s how pugilistic viewing felt in person.

The punches

From a broadcast, a punch that sends sweat, blood, or vaseline flying off the opponent’s head looks like an unusually good shot that did serious damage. From the third row of seats at 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, almost every single punch produced a mini-shower.

The opening bout was a mismatch, pitting Encarnacion Diaz against the fearsome puncher Bek Nurmaganbet. The very first punch Nurmaganbet landed, a flush right hand, sent tremors through Diaz’s frame, but also the entire canvas. His shots landed with shuddering thuds, and with Nurmaganbet appearing enormous in person rather than a miniature rendering of himself on a screen, it was clearer just how much damage a punch of his could cause.

From ringside, Diaz’s reactions were more visible than they would have been on a broadcast, too – he blinked and shook his head repeatedly, prompting my colleague Ryan Songalia to speculate that he couldn’t see. The fight ended quickly and brutally (more on that in a bit), a cold plunge into my first live fight card.

The angles

The single biggest difference to watching the fights in Philly rather than remotely sounds like an innocent one: the three-minute countdown wasn’t made visible to those in person. On TV, the clock is constantly a focus. When one fighter gets hurt or knocked down, it’s the first thing commentators bring up – how many times have we heard “plenty of time left” when a boxer hits the deck, acknowledging the possibility of a KO that same round? It can be a frustrating source of drama for the fan, too – clinches and referee interventions drain the clock, limiting punchers’ and swarmers’ time to work.

But without the clock in my eyeline, rounds seemed to last forever. Rounds were filled with fierce exchange after fierce exchange, and by the time the clapper signaled the approach of round’s end, it felt like both fighters had run a marathon.

Watching from a variety of positions around the ring made for a richer viewing experience, too. I took in Dante Benjamin-Rodolfo Gomez Jnr from the corner of the show room, right behind Gomez’s corner. After a grueling fourth round in which Benjamin spilt an alarming volume of blood from Gomez’s nose, I had a head-on view of the wounded Texan walking to his stool. The crowd was roaring in appreciation of the bravery with which he had fought back despite his ostensibly broken nose, and as he made his way to his corner with the cheers ringing in his ears, Gomez smiled.

The crowd

When watching a fight remotely, the crowd is secondary to both the action and the commentary. It feels like a singular entity, screaming at spots of violence and booing if one fighter is especially determined to avoid trading punches. You’re not close enough to hear any one individual (unless they’re legendarily shrill), and even the noise of the mass is muted for easier hearing of the broadcast.

In Philly, the crowd wasn’t large – maybe a couple hundred people, tops – but they wanted blood. During the early undercard bouts, multiple fans audibly yelled “stop holding!” when a fighter tried to ride out a dangerous moment by grabbing their opponent a couple times. During Mykquan Williams-Antonio Moran, the chants of “Me-he-co!” merited earplugs, and may have swayed the judges into awarding Moran a controversial points win.

Speaking of – Jackie Kallen, former publicist for Thomas Hearns and manager to numerous other boxers since, was in Williams’ corner for the bout. After the decision was announced to raucous fans, Songalia called Jackie’s name, and they exchanged a bemused shrug. Boxing. It was an interaction that would have been impossible to see via broadcast, but perfectly captured the appropriate, futile skepticism at the decision. 

The aftermath

Any broadcast is well-practiced in jumping from one fight to the next. As soon as one bout ends, a graphic for the next pops up like clockwork, and if there’s a long wait, the commentators vamp. Rarely is the result of an undercard fight dwelled upon in the moment beyond marveling at a vicious knockout.

Without commercial breaks or previews of the next fight, attending a bout enables you to see the epilogue of the fight gone by. The defeated fighter slumps on his stool or in the referee’s arms, no longer a practitioner of violence but somebody who has just finished a very hard day at the office. The boxers touch gloves or hug, then sometimes do so again after their rendezvous with their corners. 

There was no anger, which can feel jarring given the violence during the fights themselves.

I also cover tennis, and there’s no other sport in which competitors get so frustrated. Tennis players yell at themselves, yell at their support team, yell at the ballkids and chair umpires, smash their rackets, whack the ball in anger, and engage in all manner of other mini-tantrums.

This kind of outburst is rarely seen in boxing – Shawn Porter thwacking the canvas after getting dropped for a second time by Terence Crawford comes to mind, as does Edgar Berlanga banging his gloves together while on the floor courtesy of Canelo Alvarez’s quicksilver left hook. But fighters usually save their energy for throwing and evading punches and can look tired or haggard during pockets of inaction rather than furious. On the ProBox TV card, the fighters largely fought hard and were courteous afterwards.

Maybe with one exception.

In the opening bout, Nurmaganbet slammed Diaz with a huge right hand when Diaz was already on a knee. It happened about ten feet in front of my face. The referee ignored the infraction and waved off the bout soon after. Though the late punch didn’t change the result of the bout – Diaz had no chance – it warranted a point deduction and time for Diaz to recover, if not a disqualification. There was no audible commentary from my ringside seat, no social media storm online. The indignity just hung in the air afterwards. Then everybody prepared for the next bout.