Been awhile since the last time. List the best and the worst of referees and refereeing performances. Everyone has had their share of bad performances of course, but this is a general ranking of some of the more familiar refs The best Richard Steele, Mitch Halpern, Steve Smoger The good ones Mills Lane, Vic Drakulich, Kenny Bayless Sometimes useful Joe Cortez, Eddie Cotton, Arthur Mercante Jr Poor Lawrence Cole, Jay Nady Criminal Old Frank Cappucino
Today is a beautiful sunny day here in Toronto. I'm gonna go for a bike ride I think. Enjoy discussing boxing referees gang.
Richard Steele will be forever carry the stain of the Meldrick Taylor stoppage. To me the GOAT is judge Mills Lane. Sometimes I watched crappy fights just to see him doing what he did best. How many refs made it to pop culture?
Yup. Just awful. I'm surprised you didn't hear of all people. I thought it'd be all over your community.
What community? What are you insinuating? Is that a racial attack to a person of color from a minority ethnic group??
The most corrupt performance by a ref I’ve seen was Isidro Rodriguez in Juan Coggi-Eder Gonzalez 1. The most inept performance I’ve seen was Paul Sita in Derrick Gainer-Freddie Norwood
Lane was by far the best IMO. Its not even close. I cant find any complaint with Lane. He was firm and forceful, yet didn't get himself involved when he didn't have to. And he seemed to know the exact right time to stop fights. Lane would always pat guys on the back when he stopped fights too, like he legitimately cared about their health. Smoger was a bit tooooooooo blood thirsty. I know Arthur Mercante Sr. is generally considered the GOAT ref, and while he's top 5, Mills Lane IMO was much better. Worse are Lawrence Cole, and whichever ref used to let Hatton get away with murder, forget his name. I was gonna say Jay Nady, but to be fair Nady wasn't thaatttt bad. He wasn't good, but there's far, far worse refs.
Nah, the most inept ref performance remains Rudy Goldstein killing Benny Parret by allowing him to take 30 unanswered blows from Griffith. It was a horrible stoppage EVEN BY 1960S STANDARDS.
I thought Lane took too much role in some of his fights. Also, he blabbered too much and gave those "hey hey hey" commands when he should have said stop or break. I get the idea that if you can solve the situations by talking, you have to interfere less, but it is a lot to ask from a fighter to pay attention to yapping when he has a fight in front of him. Richard Steele had his controversial calls, but he handled bouts very smoothly and he was strong enough to break clinches when needed. But Lane is up there among the very best too
Steele's top 5. People continue to say he's horrible due to Chavez-Taylor 1, but he was one of the best. He was considered THE best before Chavez-Taylor, but it didn't help his cause that the year after he got a lot of flack for stopping Tyson-Ruddock early.
Another awful one was Charlie Daggert during Ike Williams-Beau Jack. Even someone as mean as Ike stopped in the middle and asked him to stop it. Luckily there was no tragedy here, there could have easily been one since the ref was out to lunch.
And that one was arguably worse. It's also going to smell extra bad if a questionable stoppage occurs in favor of a Don King promoted fighter.
Off the top of my head my favourite ever reffing performance was Joseph Cooper in Khan-Peterson. Any time khan clinched and looked at the ref as if to say 'right ive done my part now stop the fight and reset us to the ten foot distance i like' Cooper literally shouted 'Fight him!' and let the action go. If every ref took that lead the sport would be significantly better. Naturally the main post-fight topic of chat was how terrible cooper had been and Ive barely ever seen him again.
Every referee should be like that. It's so infuriating when guys look over or talk to the ref seeking help. You see that shit in other sports as well particularly from "stars" who act as if the official is their personal employee.
Aye, its pretty much the norm now that all you have to do is grab a guys arm and stop fighting and the ref will jump in and reset the action at distance. Alot of times guys dont even bother trying to fight inside they just both stop in anticipation of it. Its pish. Joseph Cooper - 'FIGHT HIM'
And to make it worse they don't even issue warnings let alone deduct points. I'm glad the ref in Loma-Rigo didn't let it slide.
