Sometimes, yes. In cases where a draw was pending, and the referee split it, it was a good thing imo and would be an excellent edition to today's 12 rounders. Obviously it has the problems of #1 distracting the referee from his actual job and #2 making sure referees are competent is hard enough as it, let alone if they can be competent judges too! I personally don't want referees to ever be the lone judge of a big fight to comeback. Ref's have one job, judges have another. Let them do it alone imo. All in all, I'd say it's for they don't return. If I was to change the judging system, I'd make it so that there was a 4th judge in the event of a draw or controversial decision.
He couldn't have been any worse than the biased Latin based judges in the JC Chavez fights involving Whitaker and Randall.
No. It's better to have three ringside judges than two and one guy trying to do two jobs at once, provided the judges are not bought by the promoter, sanctioning body, etc.[/QUOTE]
The referee is there to enforce the rules of the fight and most importantly, look after the safety of the fighters. And after sitting through many a shocking non title fight decision in the UK in the 80s and 90s, where the ref was the sole judge, it is clear rule enforcement and safety is more than enough for a ref, and most I suspect agree, certainly Steele did in an interview I read in the 90s.
