The Best Ref Ever

Mickey Vann is a good shout, for all those reasons there you stated. He never seems to get alot wrong, which is what you want, right decisions at the right time.

 

Richard Steele.

 

Unfortunately my two favorites are gone: Mills Lane and Mitch Halpern.

There are some that I like here and there - Tony Orlando, Frank Cappucino, Eddie Cotton, Wayne Kelly, Steve Smoger, Fred Steinweinder, Vic Drakulich.

 

He would be my modern pick as well.

 

Richard Steele and Arthur Mercante Sr.

Woller

 

And then maybe the very best: John Coyle

Woller

 

I'd be curious to know why it should not be Arthur Mercante, Sr. What might he have done wrong? Where might he have screwed up? It's a process of elimination type inquiry.

Stanley Christodoulou comes to mind. His explicit criteria for determining precisely when to stop Pryor/Arguello I was spot on.

Mills Lane did a great job officiating Holmes/Cooney. A diminutive man with a commanding presence. A little flamboyant though. Ideally, a referee ought not to be noticed, and shouldn't be a decisive factor in turning the tide of a fight, as Tony Perez did in round two of Ali/Frazier II, or as Arthur Donovan did in Louis/Mauriello.

Mercante's presence wasn't merely commanding enough to induce boxers to break on his verbal command, but his nonverbal communications skills actually enabled him to effectively referee matches between boxers who spoke in different languages.

During Mercante's career, the era of referees also scoring contests went into decline. Even when stripped of this authority, he was able to maintain control of the action. (Naturally, if a referee is also judging a bout, the sensible thing is to respect his authority. This can be somewhat diminished if he's not keeping a scorecard, but it wasn't true for Mercante.)

 

Larry Hazzard was a good ref as a commissioner he rarely made much sense, but he was spot on about refs not scoring fights.

It is potentially very dangerous, a ref's sole job should be looking after the safety of each fighter; to have to judge a fight as well, is a job too much.

 

IMHO

Arthur Donovan

 

Wrong thread.

This thread is for best ref ever not worst.

 

Mills Lane

 

Ruby Goldstein, Arthur Mercante SR, and JR. Randy Neumann,Richard Steele,Mills Layne and a couple of spanish guys I cant think of right now, Perez and?

 

My reservations about Hazzard as a referee concern the fact that he was too active and involved in the action. Boxing is a spectator sport, and as I've stated before, I don't think a great referee draws attention to himself. Sometimes, I noticed Hazzard to the exclusion of the competitors.Through most of boxing's history, referees did perform as judges, sometimes as the sole judge. Yet past generations of retired boxers didn't seem to be afflicted with premature dementia as much as today's younger retirees from the sport, and this despite the fact that referees doubled as judges in an era when professionals might have 200 to 400 fights (not including amateur competition).

It's challenging for me to question a system which worked perfectly well for over a century, and I see no evidence that taking judging duties away from the referee has enhanced boxer safety.It's been my understanding that in Mexico, the ringside physician can press a button to set off a red light ending a match, and that this system has worked very well in that country. Can anybody on ESB verify that this has been the practice there?