I'm currently reading the Jack Dempsey book after it was recommended by one of the esteemed posters on here. One of the things that stuck out to me, still pretty early on in the book, is that Dempsey regularly had other fighters, sometimes even prior opponents reffing his fights. At least early on. I also remember hearing about Wyatt Earp reffing fights, and of course Joe Walcott reffed the famous fixed fight. Was Walcott the last non-referee to ref a fight? When did the practice of having full time refs start to take over? How cool would it be to see Usyk reffing AJs next fight? Or Sheriff Joe Arpeo or somebody like that?
He's a political figure. Perhaps let's not have political figures reffing fights. Ick. I watch sporting events to get AWAY from politics, not have them serving as ref! Ack.
Sonny Liston reffed the Denny Moyer v Joey Giambra jr. middleweight fight Bob Foster reffed the second Joe Frazier v Jimmy Ellis fight Georges Carpentier reffed the Jack Johnson v Frank Moran fight.
In 1962 Sonny Liston reffed a fight between a former (Cleveland Williams) and future (Dave Bailey) opponent of his.
Dempsey refereed a Billy Miske fight six months after he had KO'd Miske in a title fight. Some pretty famous fights were actually refereed by an ex-champ: McLarnin vs Ross (Dempsey), Frazier vs Quarry II (Joe Louis, not his finest hour), Moore vs Durelle (Jack Sharkey), Moore vs Valdes (Jim Braddock), Ortiz vs Ramos (Billy Conn - quite controversial), Patterson vs Rademacher (Tommy Loughran).
You meant Joe Arpaio? Very political figure. Anyway, I get what you meant -- having the local sheriff ref. Would be entertaining.
Didn't Trump ref some wrestling bouts back when the Trump Casino was open in Atlantic City? He's in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame for staging many fights in AC.
On the west coast, George Latka, John Thomas and Rudy Jordan were all world class lightweights and all three of them were world class referees.
