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Chatting With #CottoCanelo Referee ROBERT BYRD
The best referees in sports are more complex than mysterious. Their agenda to keep an even playing field is often what any fan would expect, but their preparation is at times overlooked.
Boxing referee Robert Byrd thinks it’s best to stay out of the equation. The veteran referee might be the perfect referee for any fight fan because he has built a reputation to, in his own words, “let fighters fight.” Maybe that is why he was chosen by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to referee the big fight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez on Saturday night.
Or maybe it is because Byrd is a World Boxing Hall of Fame referee with over 100 world title bouts on his resume and 34 years of experience. Some of the most recent title fights Byrd worked include Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero, and Timothy Bradley vs. Juan Manuel Marquez.
We spoke with Byrd on Wednesday about his preparation for Cotto vs. Canelo, his reputation in boxing, and the importance of positioning.
Ray Markarian: What’s going on Robert?
Robert Byrd: Well, I am at the gym. I am just waiting for the guy to get here and open shop…
RM : Are you going to work out?
RB : Well, I am going to work some sparring before I really have to go to work.
RM : Do you work at the boxing gyms often before fights?
RB : Well, I try to get in a couple times a week, whether I am working a fight or not. I am a strong believer in you practice the way you play. I can go out and run four or five miles, or do some push ups or sit ups, but that doesn’t get me into fight shape. I think that you are doing the fighters a disservice if you don’t do your best to prepare to get into fight shape.
RM : Do many referees get into fight shape before fights?
RB : I know a few. But I don’t know. It’s maybe one or two refs that get in shape.
RM : Is it something you think they should do?
RB : Yes, I do. You have to get into fight shape. You can run miles or do other types of workouts but that doesn’t allow you to work on your positioning, or to work on your voice command, and it doesn’t help you work on being in the proper position in the ring during a fight. I can definitely tell when a person doesn’t do a lot of exercise in the ring. You can see it.
RM : Do the fighters see it too?
RB : Oh yeah. And I think the fighters, managers, and trainers appreciate when you come to the gym and work with them because it creates a realistic atmosphere. They are used to the third man in the ring. So, when they see it in the gym, it makes them comfortable. It also gives me an opportunity to educate fighters.
RM : You have been a referee for 34 years. If you can go back to 1981 and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?
RB : I would never want a fight to end too late. I can live with a fight ending too soon. But I never ever want to be guilty of stopping a fight too late.
RM : That’s a referee’s worst nightmare, right?
RB : That’s right. It sure is.
RM : And, have you ever lost sleep over a decision you made in the ring?
RB : No. Never.
RM : No?
RB : Nope.
RM : OK. I have played competitive sports. And obviously, I have never refereed professionally, but when I play sports, and I make a mistake during a critical moment in the game, it sticks with me. I still think about it afterwards.
RB : Yeah…
RM : So, do you get that feeling as a referee? Do you ever feel regret or anxiety about a decision?
RB : Well, I can’t speak for other guys but for me, it’s all about preparation. I prepare the best I can. And I go in the ring and do the best I can, and I move on. I learn from my actions. Sometimes I think back and say maybe I could have used an alternate option, because nobody is perfect. You always want to learn. That’s why I still go to the gym. People ask me why I still go to the gym. It’s because I continue to learn. Once you get to a point where you feel like you know it all, you need to quit.
RM : So, you are working the fight coming up between Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez. Are you studying their fight styles at all?
RB : No not really, I have worked with many of the fighters in the past, so I already have a good idea of what their styles are. And styles don’t really matter because, once you get hit upside the head, styles change. They can change in a hurry. My real focus is to be in shape physically and mentally so I can react to anything that happens in that ring, or I can anticipate better. Most of our profession comes down to being physically and mentally ready for the job you are going to do.
RM : You have to stay sharp…
RB : Yeah.
RM : What is the most important role for a referee in the ring?
RB : Positioning is the most important. But that is true with any sport. If you are not in the proper position, you cannot make the proper call. If you are not in proper position, you might not see something that you should have seen, like a low blow.
RM : Do you get nervous before fights?
RB : A little bit. But it’s just like any athlete, after that first pitch or when the bell rings that all goes away.
RM : How would you describe your referee style?
RB : I tend to let fighters fight. I think that’s my reputation in the business. All of these managers and trainers have a book on officials. They have a book and know about our tendencies.
RM : I’m sure they do.
RB : Oh yeah. They do. So, my reputation is that I let fighters fight. And I can live with that. I am happy with that.
RM : So, why is it your style to let fighters fight?
RB : Because the fighters are the most important people. The fans don’t come to watch me. They come to watch the fighters.
RM : And when you go in the corners in between rounds to speak with fighters, what types of questions are you asking?
RB : Well, normally I am telling them something.
RM : OK.
RB : If I ask them anything it will be something like, “Are you ok?” “How do you feel?”… But most of the time I am telling them something like, “If you are not going to defend yourself, then I will have to take appropriate action.” And they know what I am talking about. I always focus on the fighters. I don’t pay attention to their corner because most of them (corner men) are very brave. But they ain’t taking any punches. After a while, you get to understand who some of the better trainers or managers are because they take care of their fighter. The good trainers make my job easier. But there are those corners that act recklessly at times, and force a referee to take care of their fighter because they are not going to do it themselves.
RM : When you are in the middle of the round and you do not get opportunity to speak with a fighter, how do you know when to stop a fight?
RB : It’s a judgment call. You look for muscle control. You look for their ability to defend themselves. If a fighter is not intelligently defending himself, then they are out of it. I usually look for what a fighter is doing to help himself or herself. Are they thinking in the ring? If I can see that they are thinking, then I will give them an opportunity to work through it. If a fighter is taking some shots and he is trying to grab the opponent or move intelligently, then it tells me that you are thinking. But if I don’t any of those things then I have to make a decision.
RM : Protecting the fighters first, right?
RB : Absolutely. That’s the number one priority.
RM : You don’t care about the outcome of a fight.
RB : No I don’t. I don’t give a damn who wins. That’s up to the fighter. My job is providing an even playing field. I don’t want to determine the outcome. I don’t have a problem stepping in if I have to as an official. But I don’t want to determine outcome the fight unless it’s necessary.
RM : How did you get good at letting fighters fight?
RB : Well, it’s not something you learn overnight. It takes time. It’s experience.
RM : What else can we learn about Robert Byrd?
RB : I am just happy to be a part of this game. And I mean that sincerely. It is a blessing to be a part of this game. It’s a beautiful game. And it’s a game that has given me an opportunity to see things that I would have never seen, or meet people that I would have never seen. Boxing gives me an opportunity to be an inspiration to kids. I am truly blessed to be a member of this game in any capacity. I truly feel that way.
You can follow Ray on Twitter @raymarkarian or email him here raymond.markarian@yahoo.com
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Decades ago, battles between regional warriors were as common as freeway traffic in Los Angeles during rush hour.
Bobby Chacon repped San Fernando Valley, Mando Ramos came from the docks of San Pedro, Danny “Little Red” Lopez lived in Alhambra and Ruben “Maravilla Kid” Navarro hailed from East L.A. And they rumbled repeatedly with each other.
The boxing sphere in California has grown much larger despite the closure of boxing palaces such as the Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium, Great Western Forum, the L.A. Coliseum and Wrigley Field.
Those were classic venues.
Today in the 21st century boxing continues to grow.
Golden Boy Promotions presents SoCal regional rivals Santa Ana’s Alexis Rocha (25-2, 16 KOs) facing Hollywood’s Raul Curiel (15-0,13 KOs) in a welterweight clash on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. DAZN will stream the main card and YouTube.com the remainder.
Ontario is located in the Inland Empire known as the I.E.
Rocha, 27, has grown into a crowd favorite with a crowd-pleasing style developed by Orange County boxing trainer Hector Lopez. I remember his pro debut at Belasco Theater in downtown L.A. He obliterated his foe in three rounds and the small venue erupted with applause.
Wherever Rocha goes to fight, his fans follow.
“Anyone I face is trying to take food away from my family,” said Rocha.
Curiel, 29, has traveled a different road. As a former Mexican Olympian he took the slower road toward adapting to the professional style. Freddie Roach has refined the Mexican fighter’s style and so far, he remains unbeaten with a 10-fight knockout streak.
“I want to fight the best in the division,” said Curiel who is originally from Guadalajara.
Super welter hitters
Another top-notch fighter on the card is super welterweight Charles Conwell from Cleveland, Ohio. Conwell (20-0, 15 KOs) faces Argentina’s undefeated Gerardo Vergara (20-0, 13 KOs) in the co-main event.
Conwell may be the best kept secret in boxing and has been dominating foes for the past several years. He has solid defense, good power and is very strong for this weight class. Very Strong.
“I got to go out there and dominate,” said Conwell. “This is a fight that can lead me to a world championship fight.”
Golden Boy Promotions got lucky in picking up this fighter who could compete with any super welterweight out there. Anyone.
Vergara, 30, is another Argentine product and if you know anything about that South American country, they groom strong fighters with power. Think Marcos Maidana. This will be his first true test.
“I really hope he (Conwell) backs what he is saying,” said Vergara.
Marlen Esparza vs Arely Mucino
Former flyweight world titlists finally meet, but at super flyweight.
Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza fights Mexico’s Arely Mucino in a fight that should have taken place years ago. Both are both coming off losses in title fights.
Esparza has the “fast hands” as she said and Mucino the “aggressive style” as she mentioned at the press conference on Thursday in Ontario.
It’s a 10-round affair and could mark the end for the loser.
Friday Night Fights
Undefeated middleweight Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0, 12 KOs) headlines a 360 Promotions and faces Raphael Igbokwe (17-5, 7 KOs) in the main event on Friday, Dec. 13, at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif. UFC Fight Pass will stream the event.
Akhmedov hails from Kazakhstan and if you remember legendary Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin also hails from that region. Tom Loeffler the head of 360 Promotions worked with GGG too among other legends.
Is Akhmedov the real deal?
Former American Olympian Carlos Balderas (14-2) is also on the card and fights veteran Cesar Villarraga (11-10-1) who has been known to upset favorites in the past.
Fights to Watch
Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0) vs Raphael Igbokwe (17-5).
Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1) vs Ricardo Espinoza (30-4).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Alexis Rocha (25-2) vs Raul Curiel (15-0); Charles Conwell (20-0) vs Gerardo Vergara (20-0); Marlen Esparza (14-2) vs Arely Mucino (32-4-2).
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Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
The final ShoBox event of 2025 played out tonight at the company’s regular staging ground in Plant City, Florida. When the smoke cleared, the “A-side” fighters in the featured bouts were 3-0 in step-up fights vs. battle-tested veterans, two of whom were former world title challengers. However, the victors in none of the three fights, with the arguable exception of lanky bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi, made any great gain in public esteem.
In the main event, a lightweight affair, Jonhatan Cardoso, a 25-year-old Brazilian, earned a hard-fought, 10-round unanimous decision over Los Mochis, Mexico southpaw Eduardo Ramirez. The decision would have been acceptable to most neutral observers if it had been deemed a draw, but the Brazilian won by scores of 97-93 and 96-94 twice.
Cardoso, now 18-1 (15), had the crowd in his corner., This was his fourth straight appearance in Plant City. Ramirez, disadvantaged by being the smaller man with a shorter reach, declined to 28-5-3.
Co-Feature
In a 10-round featherweight fight that had no indelible moments, Luis Reynaldo Nunez advanced to 20-0 (13) with a workmanlike 10-round unanimous decision over Mexico’s Leonardo Baez. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 twice.
Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, is an economical fighter who fights behind a tight guard. Reputedly 85-5 as an amateur, he is managed by Sampson Lewkowicz who handles David Benavidez among others and trained by Bob Santos. Baez (22-5) was returning to the ring after a two-year hiatus.
Also
In a contest slated for “10,” ever-improving bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi improved to 12-0 (3 KOs) with a sixth-round stoppage of Filipino import Aston Palicte (28-7-1). Akitsugi caught Palicte against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of punches climaxed by a right hook. Palicte went down and was unable to beat the count. The official time was 1:07 of round six.
This was the third straight win by stoppage for Akitsugi, a 27-year-old southpaw who trains at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in LA under Roach’s assistant Eddie Hernandez. Palicte, who had been out of the ring for 16 months, is a former two-time world title challenger at superflyweight (115).
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Introducing Jaylan Phillips, Boxing’s Palindrome Man
On Thursday, Nov. 28, as Americans hunkered down at the dinner table with family and friends for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, junior welterweight Jaylan Phillips and his trainer Kevin Henry were up in the sky flying from Las Vegas to Rochester, New York. For their Thanksgiving repast, they were offered a tiny bag of peanuts.
Phillips would not have eaten too much had the opportunity presented itself. The next day was the weigh-in. On Saturday, the 30th, he would compete in the 6-round main event of a small club show.
Phillips wasn’t brought to Rochester to win. His opponent, Wilfredo Flores, had a checkered career but he had once held a regional title and he lived in the general area. In boxing parlance, Jaylan Phillips was the “B” side. His role, from the promoter’s standpoint, was to fatten the record of the house fighter.
Jaylan didn’t follow the script. He won a unanimous decision over his 11-3-1 opponent, advancing his record to 4-3-4, and returned to Las Vegas with a new nickname, albeit not one of his own choosing or intended as a permanent accessory. This reporter dubbed him The Palindrome Man.
A palindrome is a word that spells the same backward and forward. Phillips’ current record is palindrome-ish.
It’s an odd record. One would be hard-pressed to find other active boxers with a slew of draws inside a small window of fights. It harks to the days, circa 1900, when some journeymen boxers accumulated as many draws as wins and losses combined.
A boxer with a 4-3-4 record would seem to be an unlikely candidate for a feature story, but the affable Jaylan Phillips is not your run-of-the-mill prizefighter.
Boxers, as we know, tend to be city folk, drawn from the black belts and the barrios of America’s urban places. Phillips grew up in Ebro, Florida, population 237 per the 2020 U.S. census. Ebro is in the Florida panhandle in the northwestern part of the state in a county that was dry until 2022. It is 23 miles due north of Panama City Beach but a world apart from the seaside Florida resort town and its pricey beachfront condos.
Of those 237 people, only five identified as African-American or black, or so it would be written, but the census-taker was obviously slothful. “That’s a crazy number,” says Phillips. “There has to be at least 40 or 50. And the reason I know that is that we are all related.”
“What does one do for excitement in Ebro?” we asked him. “Hunting, fishing, trapping, that sort of thing,” he said. And what does one trap? “Mostly raccoons,” he said, while adding that some of the elders in his extended family consider it a delicacy.
Phillips fought in Rochester, New York, on Saturday and was back in the gym in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He lives alone and does not own a car. His apartment, near UNLV, is three-and-a-half miles from the Top Rank Gym where he does most of his training. He jogs there and then jogs home again, this in a city where the temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees for much of the year.
During his high school years, Phillips, now 25, concedes that he smoked a lot of weed and it impacted his grades. His interest in boxing was fueled by the exploits of Roy Jones Jr, another fighter with roots in the Florida panhandle. In his spare time, he enjoys watching tapes of old Sugar Ray Robinson fights which can be found on youtube. “He was the best,” says Phillips of Robinson who has been dead for 35 years, echoing an opinion that hasn’t diminished with the passage of time.
In his second pro fight, Phillips was thrust against a baby-faced novice from Cleveland, Abdullah Mason. Although Mason was only 17 years old, the Top Rank matchmaker did Jaylan no favors. He was still standing when the referee waived the fight off in the second round.
About the heavily-hyped Mason, Phillips says, “He’s a beast, like they say, but I would love to fight him again. I took that fight on two weeks’ notice. I’m confident the outcome would have been different if I had had a full camp.”
This observation will undoubtedly strike some as a delusion. Pound for pound, the precocious Mason just may be the top pro fighter in the world in his age group. But Jaylan isn’t lacking confidence which spills over when he talks about what lies ahead for him. “I will be a world champion,” he says matter-of-factly. And after boxing? “I see myself back home in Ebro living a humble life, hunting and fishing, but with a million dollars in the bank.”
If unswerving dedication and self-confidence are the keys to a successful boxing career, then Jaylan Phillips, notwithstanding his 4-3-4 record, is destined for big things. But here’s the rub:
“In boxing, it isn’t what you earn, but what you negotiate,” says the esteemed British boxing pundit Steve Bunce alluding to the importance of a well-connected manager. In a perfect world, each win would be stepping-stone to a bigger fight with a commensurately larger purse. But in this chaotic sport, a “B side” fighter who scores an upset in a low-level fight may actually be penalized for his “impertinence.” Promoters may be wary of using him again (the old “risk/reward” encumbrance) and, in a sport where it’s important for an up-and-comer to stay busy, his progress may be stalled.
Phillips doesn’t know when his next assignment will materialize, but regardless he will keep plugging along while setting an example that others who aspire to greatness would be wise to emulate.
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