Whenever people watch a live MMA event, the best seat in the house is always with the action up-close and personal at cageside. But you need to shell out some money to be able to enjoy that luxury.
The cageside area might just have the best view for ticket purchasers. But no seat in the house is better than the one inside the cage. The referee has the best job in the world because he can watch the fight within inches away from himself.
Each punch is crisp, each kick is solid. There’s no pixelation, no buffering. There’s no big-bellied, beer-guzzling maniac sitting in the row in front of you.
This Is What The Ref Sees When He Officiates A Fight
To get a somewhat similar feel of what the referee sees in a fight, MMA promotions in the past have installed cameras on in-cage officials.
We’ve seen the ref-cam gimmick during the old PRIDE and Strikeforce events. Sometimes it was awesome. Sometimes it made us want to barf from motion sickness.
FOX Sports tried to implement the ref-cam during UFC broadcasts in 2012 by lauding its unique camera views like Catcher Cam, Diamond Cam and Gopher Cam. The aim was to bring viewers closer to the excitement of the sport they love. But it was never used in the UFC.
Rites of Passage, a Saipan-based MMA promotion, tried to revive the trend by installing a GoPro Hero4 Chest Mount on referee Alveric Alvarez.
Action Cameras Can Be Used For More Than Just Underwater Videos
Alvarez was the middleman in the co-main event that featured Frank Camacho going against Yasuaki Miura.
The MMA company made a good call by attaching a camera onto the referee. The camera captured Camacho’s 34-second vicious technical knockout victory over Miura.
It was a walk in the park for Camacho as he dropped Miura with a wild right cross and then polished off the Japanese fighter on the ground with a volley of punches to get the stoppage win.
After beating Miura, Camacho went to win three of his four fights by way of the same fashion. Meanwhile, Miura fought again but lost and suffered the same fate against Rio Date.
