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In Praise of Referees
Being a third man in the ring is a difficult and oftentimes thankless job, but like airline pilots and doctors, referees must strive to avoid off days. Too much depends on their being consistently fit and ready and at the top of their game. Nonetheless, they are the object of criticism more often than not.
In this connection, one thing that is becoming pretty obvious points to the same referees being used over and over again from what would appear to be limited and localized pools. This can be both good and badâgood because we are getting skilled and experienced people; bad because new ones are not being groomed. This is especially true in Las Vegas, New York City, and California. Plum assignments go to too few and this has resulted in visible disgruntlement among other referees, particularly on the West Coast.
During the past few years Michael Griffin, an excellent Canadian referee has received many assignments (including world title matches) in the state of New York. In fact, he handled the Joshua-Ruiz fight at Madison Square Garden in June 2019. This raises the question: were there no local referees capable of handling these well-paying jobs?
âIt is sad that we have so many state commissions that are the appointees of governors and donât hold the necessary credentials to be put in charge of a very difficult sport to manageâ — the late Elmo Adolph
As for the caliber of refereeing, the controversies of the past have abated during the last couple of years. 2019 was especially free of poor or obtrusive officiating by third men who insisted on becoming too much a part of the show.
Of course, thereâs no such thing as a perfect referee. The late and esteemed Elmo Adolph and the beloved Wayne Kelly came pretty close. Ring 10 in New York (which helps boxers in need) now has an annual award named in honor of Wayne. This yearâs winner was New Yorkâs Steve Willis. Experienced and consistent New York area referee Ron Lipton previously won Ring 10âs Jose Torres Renaissance Man award.
âWayne was a take-charge, no-nonsense referee. He let the fighters fight, and he was always in the gym working sparring sessions to stay sharp.â- Randy Gordon, former head of the New York State Athletic Commission.
It is nice and rewarding that I was responsible for the development of many officials along the way and that many refer to me as their mentor. â Elmo Adolph
In 2011, longtime Italian boxing judge and globetrotting referee Massimo Barrovecchio (pictured) worked the Klitschko-Adamek fight in Poland and did an extraordinary job. For the first time, global fans saw him on TV move about the ring with light-footed grace and remain virtually invisible until he appeared at just the right time to end the beat down the Pole was receiving.
Panamaâs Hector Afu, who worked the Saul Ălvarez vs. Kermit Cintron fight in Mexico, is another who does extremely fine work marked by his âtake-chargeâ propensity. He recently won the âWBC Referee of the Year Awardâ for the second time, having previously won it ten years ago. He last worked the Usyk-Witherspoon bout in Chicago.
In the big âClash on the Dunesâ in Saudi Arabia on Dec. 7, 2019, fans were treated to another great referee in Puerto Ricoâs Luis Pabon who refereed the main event between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz. (The sometimes unfairly criticized Pabon was invisible and was just about perfect in the 2014 fight in Macau between Vasyl Lomachenko and Thai Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo.)
On February 21, 2015, a prime Gennady Golovkin was mauling and mugging former British middleweight champion Martin Murray. Finally, at 2:10 of round 11, Pabon did what Murrayâs corner should have done when he jumped in and stopped the Brit from taking further punishment. The solid stoppage came after a game Murray caught a GGG crunching right cross to the face and then dangerously dropped his hands. He was done. Murray, like many brave fighters, is one who just wonât give up. Thatâs why fighters depend on referees and corners to step in when necessary. Murrayâs corner failed miserably in this regard. Pabon did not. Boxing needs more referees like Luis Pabon.
Jack Reissâs decision to let Tyson Fury continue after he seemingly had been knocked cold by Deontay Wilder in 2018 was as good as good can possibly get. Reiss asked Tyson if he was âOK,â made him raise his hands and walk towards him, and then let him fight. Fury then came back with a fury, showing that he was more than ready to continue.
The Brooklyn-born Reiss lives and works as a realtor in Oxnard, California, and refs almost exclusively in California, but that might be changing due to his growing reputation for being one of the very best referees in the U.S. In fact, he recently worked the âTankâ Davis vs. Yuriorkis Gamboa fight in Atlanta and his stoppage was textbook perfect.
Back to the Dunes
In another fight on the Saudi Arabia card — actually the one that stole the show — big Dillian Whyte met an even bigger Mariusz Wach in a grueling 10-round match.
The referee in this one was invisible and, with all due respect to Bo Derek, delivered a âPerfect Ten.â His technique and ring demeanor allowed him to control without being obtrusive while concurrently allowing him to make timely calls that protected the safety of the boxers. He was none other than the aforementioned Massimo Barrovecchio displaying his consistently fine work whether it be in Rome, Ukraine, Germany, Moscow, Dubai, the UK, Norway, Denmark, Monaco, Ireland, or even in front of Saudi Princes.
Perhaps referees like Barrovecchio, Pabon and Afu can be part of an international seminar. Maybe a webinar could be held out of New York City for new and/or aspiring amateur referees and Jack Reiss (and possibly Mark Nelson out of Minnesota) could be the two moderators. At any rate, state boxing commissions should consider analyzing their present referee pools to determine what, if anything, could be improved,
Corporations use a âBest in Classâ approach. Boxing should do the same.
Ted Sares can be reached at tedsares@roadrunner.com
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In a Massive Upset, Dakota Linger TKOs Kurt Scoby on a Friday Night in Atlanta
Although it was an 8-rounder on a show with two âtens,â Kurt Scobyâs match with Dakota Linger was accorded main event status on tonightâs card at the Overtime Elite Arena in Atlanta. This had everything to do with Scoby (pronounced Scooby), a former record-setting college running back who was considered one of the brightest prospects in the 140-pound weight class. â[Scoby] works harder than almost anyone Iâve ever seen,â said veteran New York promoter Lou DIBella in a conversation with Keith Idec. âBut heâs literally getting better after every fight and heâs got the hammer of Thor, man. He can punch through walls.â
The Duarte, California product who has relocated to Brooklyn and trains at Gleasonâs Gym, was undefeated (13-0) heading in and was expected to make Linger his ninth straight knockout victim. But Linger, a 29-year-old Buckhannon, West Virginia policemen whose first ring engagements were in Toughman competitions, wasnât intimidated by Scobyâs press clippings or by Scobyâs bodybuilder physique.
Linger, who improved to 14-6-3 with his tenth win inside the distance, took the fight right to Scoby and repeatedly found a home for his overhand right. In the sixth round, after Linger strafed the ever-retreating Scoby with a barrage of punches, referee Malik Walid determined that he had seen enough and waived it off. The decision seemed a tad premature, but neither Scoby nor his cornermen offered anything in the way of a protest.
Tournament results
In the first installment of an 8-man super welterweight tournament, Brandon Adams returned to boxing after his second three-year layoff and showed no ring rust whatsoever. Adams, a 34-year-old family-man who grew up in the Watts district of LA, dismissed Ismael Villareal with a wicked punch to the liver in the waning seconds of round three. The official time was 2:59.
A former wold title challenger, Adams who improved to 23-3 (16 KOs), has become the king of boxing tournaments. He first attracted notice in 2018 when he won the fifth edition of âThe Contenderâ series, scoring a wide 10-round decision over Shane Mosley Jr in the championship round.
Villareal, a second-generation prizefighter from the Bronx whose dad fought the likes of Hector Camacho, declined to 13-3.
Adams next opponent will be Francisco Veron who will bring a record of 14-0-1 (10).
In an energetic 10-rounder, Veron, a Florida-based Argentine with a strong amateur pedigree, scored a unanimous decision over Mexico-born, LA southpaw Angel Ruiz (18-3-1). The judges had it 100-90, 99-91, and 96-94.
Ruiz certainly had his moments, but Veron launched and landed many more punches despite fighting the last six rounds with a damaged eye.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 281: The Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia Show
Over the years bouts between old foes such as Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia tend to be surprising.
Yes, both are only 25 but have known each other for many years.
When undisputed super lightweight champion Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) steps into the prize ring at Barclays Center to meet challenger Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) on Saturday, April 20, fans will be witnessing the continuation of a feud that began more than a decade ago.
And though the champion is a heavy favorite, familiarity is Garciaâs best weapon heading into their fight on the Golden Boy Promotions card that will be shown on PPV.COM with Jim Lampley and friends. DAZN pay-per-view is also streaming the card.
In many ways Haney and Garcia have ventured down the same path. From amateur sensations to fighting in Mexico while teens to asking for the biggest challenges available.
âWhichever version of Ryan shows up on April 20, I will be ready for him. Ryan Garcia is just another opponent to me,â said Haney who holds the WBC super lightweight title after his win over Regis Prograis.
The first time I saw Haney as a pro he battled the dangerous Mexican contender Juan Carlos Burgos at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula. It was an impressive performance against a fighter who fought three times for a world title.
Haney was 19 at the time.
My first look at Garcia as a pro was in his first bout in the U.S. when he met Puerto Ricoâs Jonathan Cruz at the Exchange in downtown Los Angeles. The Boricua looked at Garcia and tried intimidating him with stares, taunts and the usual patter. During the fight both swung and missed until the second round when Garcia zeroed in and took him out.
Garcia had just turned 18, the legal age to fight in California.
Both fighters did not have the Olympics credentials that lead to fame. But their talent has allowed them to fight through the dense smoke that is professional boxing.
Haney has defeated numerous world champions such as Prograis, Vasyl Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr., while Garcia has stopped champions Javier Fortuna and Luke Campbell.
As amateurs, Garcia and Haney battled six times with each winning three.
âThey know each other very well,â said Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions. âRyan is going to beat Devin Haney.â
Haney has a buttery-smooth style with one of the best jabs in boxing. Heâs very adept at keeping distance and not allowing anyone to fight him inside. His reflexes are outstanding, yet he seldom fights inside. Thatâs his weakness.
Garcia fights tall and has superb hand speed and a lightning quick left hook. Though his defense lacks tightness his ability to rip off three-punch combinations in a blink of an eye pauses opponents from bullying their way inside.
âThese guys always just look at me and look at me like I donât know how to box,â said Garcia on social media. âWhy was I one of the best fighters in the amateurs. Why was I a 15-time National championâŠwhy did I beat everyone I came across.â
Haney is a strong favorite by oddsmakers to defeat Garcia. But you can never tell when it comes to fighters that know each other well and are athletically gifted.
When Sergio Mora challenged Vernon Forrest he was a big underdog. When Tim Bradley fought Manny Pacquiao the first time, he was also the underdog. And when Andy Ruiz met Anthony Joshua few gave him a chance.
Haney and Garcia have history in the ring. It should be an interesting battle.
PPV.COM
Jim Lampley will be leading the broadcast on PPV.COM for the Haney-Garcia card at Barclays and texting with fans on the card live. He will be accompanied by journalists Lance Pugmire, Dan Conobbio and former champion Chris Algieri.
The PPV.COM broadcast begins at 5 p.m. PT. and is available in Canada and the USA.
Other News
MMA stars Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal will be holding a media day event on Friday, April 19, at NOVO at L.A. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Diaz and Masvidal will be boxing against each other in a grudge match on June 1 at the KIA Forum in Inglewood, Calif. The two MMA stars met five years at UFC 244 with Masvidal winning by TKO over Diaz due to cuts.
This is a grudge match, but under boxing rules.
Fight card in Commerce, Calif.
360 Promotions returns to Commerce Casino on Saturday April 20 with undefeated super lightweight Cain Sandoval leading the charge.
Sandoval (12-0) faces Angel Rebollar (8-3) in the main event that will be shown live on UFC Fight Pass. Also on the card are two female events including hot prospect Lupe Medina (5-0) versus Sabrina Persona (3-1) in a minimumweight clash.
Doors open at 4 p.m.
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Boxing Odds and Ends: The Heavyweight Merry-Go-Round
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Heavyweight Merry-Go-Round
There were few surprises when co-promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren and their benefactor HE Turki Alalshikh held a press conference in London this past Monday to unveil the undercard for the Beterbiev-Bivol show at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on June 1. Most of the match-ups had already been leaked.
For die-hard boxing fans, Beterbiev-Bivol is such an enticing fight that it really doesnât need an attractive undercard. Two undefeated light heavyweights will meet with all four relevant belts on the line in a contest where the oddsmakers straddled the fence. Itâs a genuine âpick-âemâ fight based on the only barometer that matters, the prevailing odds.
But Beterbiev-Bivol has been noosed to a splendid undercard, a striking contrast to Saturdayâs Haney-Garcia $69.99 (U.S.) pay-per-view in Brooklyn, an event where the undercard, in the words of pseudonymous boxing writer Chris Williams, is an absolute dumpster fire.
The two heavyweight fights that will bleed into Beterbiev-Bivol, Hrgovic vs. Dubois and Wilder vs. Zhang, would have been stand-alone main events before the incursion of Saudi money.
Hrgovic-Dubois
Filip Hrgovic (17-0, 13 KOs) and Daniel Dubois (20-2, 19 KOs) fought on the same card in Riyadh this past December. Hrgovic, the Croatian, was fed a softie in the form of Australiaâs Mark De Mori who he dismissed in the opening round. Dubois, a Londoner, rebounded from his loss to Oleksandr Usyk with a 10th-round stoppage of corpulent Jarrell âBig Babyâ Miller.
Thereâs an outside chance that Hrgovic vs. Dubois may be sanctioned by the IBF for the world heavyweight title.
The May 18 showdown between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury has a rematch clause. The IBF is next in line in the rotation system for a unified heavyweight champion and the organization has made it plain that the winner of Usyk-Fury must fulfill his IBF mandatory before an intervening bout.
The best guess is that the Usyk-Fury winner will relinquish the IBF belt. If so, Hrgovic and Dubois may fight for the vacant title although a more likely scenario is that the organization will keep the title vacant so that the winner can fight Anthony Joshua.
Wilder-Zhang
The match between Deontay Wilder (43-3-1, 42 KOs) and Zhilei Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) is a true crossroads fight as both Wilder, 38, and Zhang, who turns 41 in May, are nearing the end of the road and the loser (unless itâs a close and entertaining fight) will be relegated to the rank of a has-been. In fact, Wilder has hinted that this may be his final rodeo.
Both are coming off a loss to Joseph Parker.
Wilder last fought on the card that included Hrgovic and Dubois and was roundly out-pointed by a man he was expected to beat. Itâs a quick turnaround for Zhang who opposed Parker on March 8 and lost a majority decision.
Other Fights
Either of two other fights may steal the show on the June 1 event.
Raymond Ford (15-0-1, 8 KOs) meets Nick Ball (19-0-1, 11 KOs) in a 12-round featherweight contest. New Jerseyâs Ford will be defending the WBA world title he won with a come-from-behind, 12th-round stoppage of Otabek Kholmatov in an early contender for Fight of the Year. Liverpoolâs âWreckingâ Ball, a relentless five-foot-two sparkplug, had to settle for a draw in his title fight with Rey Vargas despite winning the late rounds and scoring two knockdowns.
Hamzah Sheeraz (19-0, 15 KOs) meets fellow unbeaten Austin âAmmoâ Williams (16-0, 11 KOs) in a 12-round middleweight match. East Londonâs Sheeraz, the son of a former professional cricket player, is unknown in the U.S. although he trained for his recent fights at the Ten Goose Boxing Gym in California. Riding a skein of 13 straight knockouts, he has a date with WBO title-holder Janibek Alimkhanuly if he can get over this hurdle.
The Forgotten Heavyweight
âUnbeaten for seven years, the man nobody wants to fight,â intoned ring announcer Michael Buffer by way of introduction. Buffer was referencing Michael Hunter who stood across the ring from his opponent Artem Suslenkov.
This scene played out this past Saturday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It was Hunterâs second fight in three weeks. On March 23, he scored a fifth-round stoppage of a 46-year-old meatball at a show in Zapopan, Mexico.
The second-generation âBounty Hunter,â whose only defeat prior to last weekend came in a 12-rounder with Oleksandr Usyk, has been spinning his wheels since TKOing the otherwise undefeated Martin Bakole on the road in London in 2018. Two fights against hapless opponents on low-budget cards in Mexico and a couple of one-round bouts for the Las Vegas Hustle, an entry in the fledgling and largely invisible Professional Combat League, are the sum total of his activity, aside from sparring, in the last two-and-a-half years.
Hunterâs chances of getting another big-money fight took a tumble in Tashkent where he lost a unanimous decision in a dull affair to the unexceptional Suslenkov who was appearing in his first 10-round fight. The scores of the judges were not announced.
You wonât find this fight listed on boxrec. As Jake Donovan notes, the popular website will not recognize a fight conducted under the auspices of a rogue commission. (Another fight you wonât find on boxrec for the same reason is Nico Ali Walshâs 6-round split decision over the 9-2-1 Frenchman, Noel Lafargue, in the African nation of Guinea on Dec. 16, 2023. You can find it on YouTube, but according to boxrec, boxingâs official record-keeper, it never happened.)
Anderson-Merhy Redux
The only thing missing from this past Saturdayâs match in Corpus Christi, Texas, between Jared Anderson and Ryad Merhy was the ghost of Robert Valsberg.
Valsberg, aka Roger Vaisburg, was the French referee who disqualified Ingemar Johansson for not trying in his match with LAâs Ed Sanders in the finals of the heavyweight competition at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Valsberg tossed Johansson out of the ring after two rounds and Johansson was denied the silver medal. The Swede redeemed himself after turning pro, needless to say, when he demolished Floyd Patterson in the first of their three meetings.
Merhy was credited with throwing only 144 punches, landing 34, over the course of the 10 rounds. Those dismal figures yet struck many onlookers as too high. (This reporter has always insisted that the widely-quoted CompuBox numbers should be considered approximations.)
Whatever the true number, it was a disgraceful performance by Merhy who actually showed himself to have very fast hands on the few occasions when he did throw a punch. With apologies to Delfine Persoon, a spunky lightweight, U.S. boxing promoters should think twice before inviting another Belgian boxer to our shores.
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