By Scott Gilfoid: Anthony Joshua’s title defense against Alexander Povetkin will have a British referee working the fight, says Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn. Hearn’s apparent rationale for a British referee rather than a neutral one is he feels that the UK refs are “some of the best in the world.”
It’s unclear what Povetkin’s view of that is. All you can hope for is the referee, whoever it is, does a good job of controlling the fight, and doesn’t ruin the fight. In Joshua’s fight against former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker, Italian judge Giuseppe Quartarone seemed to stop both fighters from fighting on the inside. Since Joshua was the much taller of the two at 6’6”, he benefited in a huge way by the fight being fought at long range instead of in close. In Joshua’s fight with Carlos Takam last year in March, the British referee Phil Edwards appeared to halt the fight prematurely in round 10, much to the disappointment to the 70,000 boxing fans seeing the contest live at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
“It will be an English ref. We’re looking at an English ref with that fight because they’re some of the best in the world,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “[Povetkin’s promoters] World of Boxing are happy with a British ref. It will have to be approved by the Board. British refs are the best in the world.”
As long as the referee does a good job of controlling the action in the Joshua-Povetkin fight, it shouldn’t matter what country they’re from. However, if you see a referee bungling the job, which you can argue is what happened in the recent fight between Dillian Whyte and Joseph Parker last Saturday night on July 28 at the O2 Arena in London, England, then there’s a problem. The referee that worked the Whyte vs. Parker fight was Ian John Lewis, a British referee.
Lewis blew a call in round two in crediting Whyte with a knockdown after he accidentally collided heads with Parker and knocked him down from the impact of the collision. Instead of Lewis waiving off the knockdown and giving Parker time to recover, he called it a knockdown. Before the controversial knockdown in round 2, Parker was winning the round easily. But with the controversial call, it was a two point swing for Whyte for all intents and purposes. Moreover, Lewis failed to call many of the fouls that Whyte committed in the fight. It looked to some boxing fans like the referee Ian John Lewis was being very lax in controlling the fouling in the fight by Whyte. Between the questionable knockdown of Parker in round two and all the fouling that Whyte got away with, the contest could have easily have gone Parker’s way with a different referee that was more on the ball.
The referee selected by the British Board of Control needs to be a good one that isn’t going to make a mess of the fight by missing calls, and allowing fouling to take place without stepping in to do something about it. Parker’s promoter David Higgins wasn’t happy with the blown call by Lewis for the Whyte fight, and he plans on appealing the result. Higgins also wasn’t happy with the job the Italian referee did that worked the Joshua-Parker fight last March in Cardiff, Wales.
“No one was happy with the ref,” Higgins said to skysports.com about the referee that worked the Joshua vs. Parker fight.