By Mauricio Sulaimán
Son of José Sulaimán & President of the WBC

All sports have officials in charge of maintaining the competition in accordance with the rules established therein.

In soccer, there is the referee, who is the highest authority, and he receives support from the line officials; in American football there is the main referee and there are five other field Referees in specific positions. In baseball, there is the umpire behind home plate, and there are two others positioned at first and third base. All sports officials are invariably subject to be in the middle of public opinion, scandals, controversy of fans and media.

Boxing has the referee, who is the highest authority inside the ring, and with three judges, who are in charge of scoring round after round, and if it is necessary to determine who is the winner of the fight, if it does not end by knockout.

In its beginnings, the referee figure was created to ensure that fans did not intervene in the fight. We are talking about when this sport started, when boxing was brutal and inhuman, fights between two men in bare knuckles and, basically, without rules. Bets were what brought people together to see these fights and when there were conflicting interests, they commonly intervened and a scandal arose.

This is how the figure of the referee came about, one or several nominated people who watched the fans so that they did not intervene in the fight.

Things eventually changed, some basic rules of engagement were introduced, and the need to have someone to make sure those rules were followed.

The Marquess of Queensberry is credited with introducing the rulebook, although it was John Graham Chambers who wrote the first rules of boxing.

The referee, for many decades, was the one who decided who was the winner in case there was no knockout; he simply went to the corner and raised the hand of whoever he considered to have been superior. This practice is still in force in some boxing cards in England, those cards with a very low budget and thus only one official is hired.

Eventually, the modality of having judges came to evaluate the actions and score for who would have won the fight. For many years we saw two Judges below the ring and the Referee who also scored.

The World Boxing Council took that task away, with the aim that the referee dedicate himself/herself to taking care of the physical integrity of the fighters, and thus dedicate full attention and concentration to the actions inside the ring without having to evaluate the bout.

The reality is that the referee has the lives of the fighters in their hands, and that is why the referee must be absolutely focused on the actions and be ready to act in protection.

The mechanics inside the ring have changed absolutely. Today’s referee, for the most part, receives significant training and is required to pass certification. There is continuous training and officials are made accountable for their performance.

DID YOU KNOW…?

One of the most famous fights in history was when heavyweight world champion Jack Johnson fought James Jeffries, who had been world champion for several years previously, and was required to come out of retirement to try to defeat Johnson, who had become the first black world heavyweight champion.

At a time when racism in the United States was at its highest, the expectation for the fight was huge. The promoter of the fight, Tex Rickard, issued an invitation to the then President of the United States, William Howard Taft, to be the referee of the fight. Not being accepted, he then made contact with Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous English writer, creator of Sherlock Holmes, who also declined. Finally, it was Rickard himself who did the job of referee, when Johnson gave the American idol a merciless beating that definitively sent him to retirement.

TODAY’S ANECDOTE

The World Boxing Council was responsible for implementing the use of the red card. It is often that we find that the referee and the ring doctor of the fight do not speak the same language or that the environment is very noisy, which complicates the communication between them, so the use of the card is a clear, visual, and practical solution, which takes away the possibility of miscommunication.

Miguel Acuña from Tamaulipas had the idea of ​​implementing the red card so that the doctor can show it to the referee when he considers that the fight should not continue and thus avoid any verbal misinterpretation. It was at the annual Convention in South Africa, when the WBC voted in favor of implementing it.

The great referee Arthur Mercante Sr. took the microphone indignantly and claimed that this was an attack on the dignity of the referee and that it was unacceptable. My dad replied: “My dear Arthur, it was precisely your last fight that convinced us to vote in favor of this new dynamic, when Ricardo Lopéz was savagely cut by an accidental head butt by Rosendo Álvarez, the doctor told you it was a dangerous cut and recommended that the fight be stopped and you let it continue.”

To which Arthur replied: “But José, I don’t speak Spanish and I didn’t understand what he told me!”

My dad burst out laughing and said: “Thank you Arthur, your testimony has just ratified the decision made,” and he went to give his beloved referee a hug.

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