Marc Ratner: From The Theater Of The Unexpected To The Boxing Hall of Fame

Published

8 years ago

March 21, 2016

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By ARNE K. LANG

In 1992, Marc Ratner succeeded his close friend, the late Chuck Minker, as the Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. During his tenure, the regulatory body that he superintended came to be recognized as the paragon of state boxing commissions. This past December, Ratner learned that he had been selected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the non-participant category. He and his fellow inductees in the Class of 2016 will be formally enshrined on June 12.

Ratner will forever be associated with blood sports — boxing and now MMA – but as a sports official he has worn many hats. He has refereed football and basketball games at the high school and college levels, has operated the shot clock at UNLV basketball games for almost 35 years, and still finds time to moonlight as the commissioner of the Southern Nevada (High School) Officials Association, a post he has held since 1991.

Ratner wasn’t born in Las Vegas, but has lived here since the mid-1950s which almost qualifies him as a pioneer. To say that the city has changed during his lifetime would be a great understatement. There were four high schools in the entire county when Ratner’s parents settled here to establish their beauty and barber supply business. Today there are 32, and that doesn’t include the magnet schools without sports programs.

Ratner spent his first year of college at nascent UNLV, then known as Nevada Southern University, a place that many of the locals disparaged as Tumbleweed Tech. He played on the baseball team, batting. 400 (“two-for-five,” he elaborates, grinning sheepishly). He then transferred to the University of Nevada in Reno, a school with actual dormitories, where he majored in business administration.

Back in Las Vegas, Ratner was a player-coach on the town’s best slow-pitch softball team and took up officiating, starting with Pop Warner and high school JV games. He would eventually work three bowl games, the last of which was the Jan. 2, 2006 Cotton Bowl pitting Alabama against Texas Tech. Earlier that season, Ratner was assigned to work a Notre Dame home game (the Fighting Irish hosted BYU), his most treasured assignment as a football official. He was thrilled to be on the same field where so much history was made.

During the game, which Notre Dame won handily, the Notre Dame coach, Charlie Weis, saw fit to appraise the officiating crew. “You guys are horse****,” Weis barked at Ratner. Such is the life of a sports official for whom a thick skin is mandatory.

Ratner climbed the ladder in boxing too, starting as an inspector and then taking on the role of chief inspector. In his most memorable assignment, he was hitched to Sugar Ray Leonard and Angelo Dundee when Leonard met Marvin Hagler in their 1986 mega-fight.

That match was one of many big fights held outdoors at Caesars Palace and Ratner, in common with many others who were on the scene in those days, believes that there was a special aura to those big outdoor fights that was lost when the sport moved indoors.

Ratner never envisioned becoming the face of the boxing commission – he was quite content working as an inspector for Chuck Minker – but all that changed when Minker was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer, a disease that took his life at the age of 42. Several people applied for Minker’s post, but Ratner, who was in many ways an extension of his good friend Minker, was the logical successor.

In the memorable words of Larry Merchant, boxing is the theater of the unexpected. Ratner was in his customary seat, smack against the ring apron, when “Fan Man” intruded upon the middle fight of the Bowe-Holyfield trilogy and again at the infamous “bite fight,” another bout in which Evander Holyfield was a principal.

Barely a minute was gone in the seventh round of Bowe-Holyfield II when paraglider James Miller, forever immortalized as “Fan Man,” swooped down from the sky. He and the motorized gizmo to which he was harnessed landed on the ropes in Riddick Bowe’s corner, only to disappear into the crowd, submerged beneath a swarm of angry ringsiders beating him to a pulp. There never was a moment more surreal at a sporting event.

“My training as a sports official,” says Ratner, “taught me that whenever there is a sudden interruption, as sometimes happens when there is a disturbance in the crowd, the first order of business is to check with the timekeeper. I informed each of the judges how much time had elapsed and told them to hang tight as they may have to score the round.” (The most bizarre round in boxing history, lasting almost 24 minutes from start to finish, wasn’t easy to score. One judge gave it to Bowe, the other to Holyfield, and the third scored it a draw.)

Ratner recalls that the incident could have easily bubbled into a full-scale riot. “The unsung hero that night was Michael Buffer,” he says, recalling that Buffer had the presence of mind to take the microphone and say the right things to keep the audience calm.

The “bite fight” was actually the “bites fight” (plural). When Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear the first time, it wasn’t obvious to anyone other than referee Mills Lane who called “time out” and informed Ratner what had just transpired. “He bit him. I’m going to disqualify him,” said Lane.

Recalling the incident in a discussion with Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bill Dwyre, Ratner alluded to his background as a football official. “I know how serious it is to toss somebody,” he said. “When one of my crew comes to me and says a player should be thrown out, I slow it down, ask some more questions.”

“Are you sure (you want to disqualify him),” he asked Lane. When informed by ring physician Edwin Homansky that Holyfield was fit to continue and that his corner wanted the fight continue, they allowed the bout to resume. But Mills Lane wasn’t going to tolerate any more bites and Tyson wasn’t done chomping.

Imagine the brouhaha that would have ensued if Tyson had gone on to win the fight. Ratner would have been raked over the coals for second-guessing the referee.

In hindsight, the situation was handled smartly and, typical of Ratner, he gives all the credit to Mills Lane. Marc isn’t the sort to pat himself on the back. Indeed, he concedes that he may have erred when he didn’t send the combatants back to their dressing rooms when Fan Man crashed the Bowe-Holyfield fight. It was the first Saturday of November and there was a chill in the air.

Ratner’s 14-year run as the head of the boxing commission ended in May of 2006 when he left to join Ultimate Fighting Championship, the company founded by the Fertitta brothers, Lorenzo and Frank, second-generation Las Vegas casino moguls, and their longtime friend Dana White. Ratner’s hiring, wrote Kevin Iole, “is a sign to the establishment that the company is for real and that mixed martial arts is about to enter the mainstream.”

In his post as Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Ratner was charged with breaking down the legal barriers that made MMA verboten in many jurisdictions. Today the sport is legal everywhere in North America with the exception of New York where an MMA bill has passed the Senate seven consecutive years only to die before reaching the floor of the Assembly. (There’s little doubt that the politicians that sabotaged the bills were beholden to union leaders. The Nevada Culinary Union, which is under the umbrella of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, a national organization, has been at loggerheads with the Fertitta brothers for more than a decade.)

The UFC has staged events in places where there was no regulatory body. It was left to Ratner to supervise the weigh-in, hire all the officials, make certain that an ambulance was at the ready, and so forth. Basically he reprised the role that he had with the boxing commission. As MMA has become a global phenomenon, finding local officials to work the UFC cards has become less problematic.

In the last 12 months alone, the UFC has staged shows in Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, Poland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Australia. In a world geography trivia test, Marc Ratner would knock the socks off anyone from his old neighborhood.

The Las Vegas headquarters of the UFC will soon have a new address. The massive complex, which will consolidate all of their facilities in one location, will include a training center staffed by specialists in various branches of physical therapy and sports medicine. No boxing promotion company ever operated on the scale of the UFC whose operation resembles that of a National Football League team.

When Ratner learned that he had been selected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, he was overwhelmed with emotion. Gerry Cooney, among many others, reached out to congratulate him, as did retired NBA referee Joey Crawford and retired NFL official Jerry Markbreit, Marc’s favorite football “zebra.” There is a camaraderie among sports officials that transcends the sport with which they are identified.

When Ratner served on the boxing commission, he was obligated to sit on the dais at press conferences and say a few words into the microphone. He never said more than a few words, deflecting the spotlight to the boxers. IBHOF inductees are encouraged to keep their acceptance speeches short, ideally no more than eight minutes. There is scant chance that Marc will run over and whatever he says will be heartfelt.

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Arne K. Lang

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

9 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to liver the from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round time. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

4 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

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Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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