Referee Mills Lane: Still Fighting At Age 78

Published

9 years ago

March 29, 2016

By BERNARD FERNANDEZ

✅ It is cruelly ironic, when you stop and think about it. Mills Lane, one of the best and most accomplished referees in boxing history, always saw himself as a protector of the individuals whose bouts he worked. Toward that end, he was an absolute stickler for enforcing the rules. If a fighter was taking too much punishment, the former Marine always knew the exact moment when he needed to step in and wrap his arms around him. In the ring, as was the case in his other duties as a district attorney and then a District Court judge in Washoe County, Nev., it was up to Lane to see that justice was served, and he never shirked his responsibility.

But there was no such protection for the protector when Mills Lane, then 64, collapsed from a stroke in his home in Reno on or about April 1, 2002. He was all alone, with no one to kneel over him or to call for the ring doctor. And so Mills Bee Lane III lay on the floor for an indeterminate length of time, any chance he might have had for an appreciable degree of recovery slipping away with each passing minute.

“When you have a stroke it’s crucial you receive treatment quickly,” said Terry Lane, the older of Lane’s two sons. “If you do you can minimize the effects of even a bad stroke. But we really can’t pinpoint when the stroke happened.

“A few months earlier, our family had become bicoastal. My brother (Tommy) had just begun high school in New York City after moving there from Reno. All of us were kind of going back and forth between Reno and New York. I had just started college in New York around that time. My mom (Kaye), my brother and I were all back East and my dad was in Reno, by himself. We really don’t know how long it was before he was found. It might have been a day, possibly as long as two days. We don’t know for sure.

“He finally was found by one of his former law partners because he missed a meeting, and Mills Lane never missed a meeting. So they knew something had to be wrong.”

Mills Lane had already retired both as a referee and as a Washoe County judge, having taken in 1998 an even higher-profile position as a dispenser of instant justice on Judge Mills Lane, a syndicated television show in which he issued rulings in the raspy voice so familiar to fight fans. But since the stroke, that voice has been forever silenced. Although his mind is said to be as sharp as ever, Lane, now 78, no longer can verbalize his thoughts. His trim and taut former athlete’s body – in addition to the remarkable fitness level he achieved in the Marine Corps, he was a former standout boxer at the University of Nevada-Reno and then as a pro, posting a 10-1 record – also has begun to fail him in a variety of ways, which stuns those who remember him as boxing’s bow-tied Energizer Bunny.

“All through his life his weight never varied by more than four or five pounds,” said a friend, New Jersey-based referee Steve Smoger. “He called himself `The welterweight.’ Ever since I’ve known him, he was always somewhere between 145 and 150.”

Added another friend, Marc Ratner, the former executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission: “Even now, it’s difficult to imagine him as a prisoner in his own body. Mills was always in such tremendous shape.”

Although Lane did attend the festivities when he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., on June 9, 2013, it was done so only with considerable effort on his part. It might even be said that Lane literally willed himself to be there.

“He has visibly aged,” Terry Lane acknowledged. “He broke his hip in 2012, the year before he was inducted in Canastota. Like any older person with physical limitations, he has lost a lot of energy. He can’t move around very easily. Mostly, he watches TV and lets Mom take care of him. She makes him as comfortable as she can.

“It seems like every year he receives an award for something, and while he does want to be around certain things, it’s difficult for him to physically get places. It causes him pain. For the most part, it’s Tommy and I and Mom serving as his representatives. When I got the call (from IBHOF executive director) Ed Brophy, I just assumed it would be Tommy and me going to Canastota and making a quick thank-you like we’ve done dozens of times before. But Dad was really into it. I know he was very happy to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He can’t speak, but he still can emote and be expressive.”

Lane’s image as a no-nonsense banty rooster inside the ropes is well-deserved, but his path to Canastota and a measure of notoriety that no referee before or since has achieved began long before the boxing world came to know him as the guy who always seemed to land the kind of fights that stick in the public’s memory. Over the course of his 34-year career, he was the third man in the ring for such major or out-of-the-ordinary bouts as Muhammad Ali-Bob Foster (1972), Larry Holmes-Gerry Cooney (1982), the Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe II “Fan Man” Fight (1993), Oliver McCall’s bizarre crying jag against Lennox Lewis (1997) and, most notably, the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson II “Bite Fight” (1997).

“The visibility of the `Bite Fight’ made Mills even more mainstream,” Ratner recalled. “It almost seemed like he worked all the Super Bowls of crazy fights.”

And the craziest of all was on June 28, 1997, when Tyson twice decided to gnaw off a one-inch chunk of Holyfield’s right ear as if it were on the menu at one of the MGM Grand’s fine restaurants. Lane had no alternative but to disqualify Tyson in the third round following the second toothy infraction.

“It’s my understanding that the producers of the (eventual Judge Mills Lane) show were watching the `Bite Fight’ and one of the TV commentators mentioned that my dad was a District Court judge in Washoe County, Nevada,” Terry Lane said. “I don’t know if that sparked the idea for him doing his own show or if they wanted a Judge (Joseph) Wapner (the first of the reality-show TV judges) thing, but it definitely put Dad on a different level of attention nationally and, I guess, even globally.”

With his shaved head, distinctive growl and signature catch phrase (“Let’s get it on!”) that spawned a wave of imitators, Mills Lane now seems like the perfect candidate to have been selected for unscripted courtroom drama. But the mere fact he wound up doing any of what he’s done, given his background, makes his accomplishments even more noteworthy.

The patrician scion of a Southern dynasty in Savannah, Ga., young Mills hailed from a banking family that also had extensive plantation holdings in that state and in South Carolina. How wealthy were the Lanes? Well, the Mills B. Lane House in historic downtown Savannah, completed in 1907, was hailed as a “jewel of the antebellum South” when it was placed on the market in 2007 with an asking price of $7.6 million. It seems a safe bet that no other future referee was raised in a mansion that boasted a marble entrance, Corinthian columns, parquet floors, 29 handcrafted canvas murals, nine fireplaces, five bedrooms, eight full baths, three half-baths and a large, in-ground pool.

Mills Lane’s father went so far as to have already paid his son’s tuition at a prestigious Midwestern university, where the young man was to study agriculture, the better to prepare him for instructing field hands on the proper way to eradicate those pesky boll weevils.

But being a banker and/or gentleman farmer didn’t especially appeal to young Mills, who did not want to float through life sipping mint juleps and benefiting from a name that carried so much economic and social clouts. He apparently believed that rich kids could be rebels, too, and not just because their male ancestors once had worn plumed hats as Confederate officers.

So Mills B. Lane chucked it all in 1958 to enlist in the Marines. He took up boxing while in service to his country, becoming All-Far East welterweight champion. And when his hitch was up, he took off for Reno where, he had read in a magazine, the local university had a boxing team of some repute. After winning an NCAA boxing championship at UNR and then enjoying some success as a pro, Lane continued his journey of self-discovery, gaining his law degree and sliding seamlessly into multiple vocations in boxing and law enforcement as a referee, deputy sheriff, district attorney and judge, where his penchant for handing out stiff sentences to felonious offenders earned him the sobriquet of “Maximum Mills.”

It should come to no surprise to anyone, given Mills Lane’s determination to forge his own identity, that one of his favorite songs is the Paul Anka-written standard My Way, the most familiar versions being the ones sung by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

“Dad definitely did things his way,” Terry Lane said. “When I hear that song, I always think of him. Not to take a morbid turn here, but he always said that he wanted that song played at a memorial service whenever his time comes.”

At least Mills got the opportunity to convey that wish to Terry and Tommy, who were teenagers when their father was stricken with the stroke that has deprived them of so many of the father-son chats that never took place.

“If I could have even a one-hour conversation, an adult conversation, with him, it would mean so much to me,” Terry said. “I’d want to hear why he made the choices he did, and his outlook on everything.

“Tommy and I have to piece together a lot of that in our adult lives. There’s so many questions we’d like to go to him with, and he’s sitting right there. It is frustrating. But safe to say, he’s one in a billion.”

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Bernard Fernandez

Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

2 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

2 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

3 days ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

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Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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