Hall of Fame referee Joe Cortez is no stranger to refereeing Floyd Mayweather fights, so from experience, he knows first hand what to expect.
Cortez will be seated ringside live tonight in Las Vegas and he is anticipating an intriguing fight. “Tomorrow’s fight is going to be an interesting match for the simple reason that it’s the second time in Mayweather’s career that he has given a fighter a rematch. The last one was Luis Castillo. The first one was kind of close and the second was lopsided all in favor of Mayweather. I think that tonight will be something similar to that,” he explained. Cortez added, “Maidana is going to come a little bit more prepared because it was a real close fight for him in the first one, and he needed a little bit more. Mayweather also knows that Maidana is an aggressive fighter that comes to fight. He is a little concerned about Maidana’s rough tactics and hopefully the fight doesn’t get out of control.”
Because of the rough nature of the first fight so much emphasis is being put on the referee for this fight, Kenny Bayless. Cortez feels like the commission did a good job in choosing Bayless. “I think that Kenny Bayless is an excellent referee for this fight. He will take good control of the fighters. I see it to be an outstanding match.”
Cortez also addressed Mayweather’s criticism of Tony Week’s officiating job in the first fight. “It was a tough fight to referee for the simple reason that the fight got a little bit out of control. Not that it really got that much out of control. Kenny Bayless is an excellent referee. Tony Weeks I think did a good job. It’s not that you have an off night but sometime s the referee doesn’t want to get involved too much because you don’t want the fight to change hands because of point deductions from the referee.” He went on to explain in further detail why Weeks let the fight play out the way it did. “You want to try and act like a referee that I was and you try and let it stay in the hands of the two fighters. Let them deal it out with themselves without the referee getting too much involved. Once a referee starts taking points, it can end up in a disqualification which is really a black eye for boxing.”
It has also been mentioned by many observers that Bayless’ officiating style may favor Mayweather. Given the fact that he has refereed many of Mayweather’s fights, it’s hard not to speculate what kind of impact Bayless may have in the fight tonight. Cortez doesn’t see a need for concern and doesn’t expect any controversy this time around. “I think Kenny Bayless is the right referee for this fight. I think it’s going to be an easier fight for Kenny to referee than it was for Tony because both sides know that the referee is not going to tolerate any nonsense and he is going to do his job to the best of his ability, and I think it’s going to be a much cleaner fight.”
