By Chris Williams: The Nevada State Athletic Commission has appointed Kenny Bayless as the referee for the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bayless has worked a couple of Mayweather’s fights in the past. He was the referee for Mayweather’s rematch against Argentinian slugger Marcos Maidana last September at the MGM Grand. Bayless also worked the Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight in September of 2013.
In each case, Bayless did a great job and was very fair for both fighters. Bayless will receive $25,000 for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight. That’s good money for just one fight.
The judges for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight are as follows: Burt Clements, Dave Moretti and Glenn Feldman.
“Referee for #Mayweather-Pacquiao will be Kenny Bayless. Judges are Burt Clements, Dave Moretti and Glenn Feldman. #boxing,” Dan Rafael said on his twitter. “Bayless will be paid $25k to referee #Mayweather-Pacquiao. Each judge will earn $20k. #boxing.”
The choices for the referee for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight came down to Bayless and Tony Weeks. It was Weeks who worked the first fight between Mayweather and Maidana in 2013. It was kind of anything goes type of fight with Maidana roughing up Mayweather constantly without being penalized for the rough stuff.
In the rematch, Mayweather made it easy for the 64-year-old Bayless by using movement to keep Maidana from trying to smother him and possibly use roughhouse tactics again on him. Bayless was very lenient with Maidana by not taking points away from him when he allegedly bit Mayweather on the hand at one point in the fight. Luckily there was no other incidents in the fight that stood out in terms of rough stuff going on.
It’s doubtful that Bayless will have to do much for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight other than make sure that the fighters have their mouthpieces in, hear the rules at the start of the fight, and know when the rounds end. Neither fighters clinch very much, nor are they dirty fighters.
Bayless will likely have little to do on May 2nd other than just basic tasks. The main thing he’ll want to do is stay out of the way of the fans so that they can get a good view of the action for as long as the fight lasts. I have a sinking suspicion that we’re going to see a knockout in this fight if Pacquiao chooses to fight wildly like he did in his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.
You can’t fight like that against Mayweather because he’ll meet you with a straight right hand to the chin as you rush in trying to land. Pacquiao will be fooling no one if he tries to use feints in the process of charging Mayweather all night. That’s not going to work. Mayweather already knows that Pacquiao likes to use two feints each time before he lowers his head like a bull and charges forward. Mayweather is going to nail Pacquiao each time he tries to rush in against him, and this fight could be over very quickly if Pacquiao doesn’t learn that he can’t use that primitive caveman style against a scientific fighter like Mayweather.
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