I think its hard to fault Lane on the Tyson Holyfield 2 fight. This wasnt just a boxing match, it was a major sporting event at the time. Lane gave Tyson an opportunity aftet the point deductions, but i mean we were in weird territory by this point as biting someones ear in the main event of a major PPV just doesnt happen. Lane also had to deal wth the Akinwande-Lewis match where akinwande decided to stop fighting and hug, and he had to deal with the Oliver McCall breakdown against lewis. The crazy thing is, all of these fights Lane had to ref in the same year!
No such thing. As for Lane, in the relatively few fights I've seen of him, I thought he got in the way too much. I think sometimes he thought he was more important than the fighters.
Good to see Frank Cappuccino get some mention here. I always thought he was really good. Not stopping it was a great call because both survived the others’ onslaughts.
He was in charge of one of the most biased, worst-officiated refereeing jobs I’ve ever seen — Mike Weaver vs. Gerrie Coetzee (with Coetzee of course being a fellow South African, and the fight being in SA). Coetzee started gassing so he held like a freaking octopus. And he would get Weaver on the ropes and grab the ropes with one hand and try to keep him pinned there. And then a couple of times he literally just took a running charge and tried to topple Weaver on the ropes. I think good-boy Stanley maybe warned him once. This was DQ-level stuff and it was all to help out the home boy. It was a complete disgrace and the fact that he not only did his job poorly, but clearly did it in favor of the hometown guy from his own country makes him crooked as well as incompetent.
He warned him the first time. Now imagine Lane disqualifying him, he would have never been allowed to ref again and all the boxing community would have accused him of cheating Tyson of a potential win, he'd be an outcast, a pariah
STEVE SMOGER. The way Smoger referees infighting is almost unique in the modern era and it makes most of the fights he refs even better. He should be the textbook for all refs going forward IMO.
Any love for Davey Pearl?? .... He stepped in at the perfect time in Leonard Hearns in 1981 .. Think he had around 60 or 70 title fights
Imagining: He would have been up there with Steele. Like those who moan because they lost money on Taylor, some of the extreme fancy and the casual fans who were obsessed with Tyson, would have bitched, but the vast majority would have just pointed out Tyson had BITTEN his opponent; and Lane did an excellent job in a crazy situation.
Not sure hearing the words “Your beautiful baby!” Is what I would like to hear after being stopped on my feet.
To be fair, it all happened quite fast and quite sudden. By The time Ruby was in position, it was too late. I think Ruby was stood on the wrong side of the corner when the sequence started and couldn’t react until he reached the other side of the corner. From that point he reacted as quick as he could. I think with Referees who move around a lot, for the benefit of not obscuring the view of the spectator, lateral movement can sometimes run a risk of the ref being too far away sometimes. It’s a very fine line and a difficult balance to maintain. Which is why I liked Harry Gibbs. He moved slow, was never too far away and never really in the way despite being a big man. I think in the case of the Paret tragedy it was just very unfortunate positioning rather than an outright blunder. Ray Mercer beating on Tommy Morrison looked far worse in my opinion.
Ollie Pecord Both the Dempsey and Willard camps objected to him apparently, they felt he wasn't experienced enough. But he proved he was "from the old school", and did I fine job.