BoxRec

Ringnews24.com: You had a pretty extensive fighting career yourself before putting on the bow tie as the third man in the ring, what advantages do you think that affords a Ref having been a pugilist himself?
Ian John Lewis: It's a great advantage, as I believe that I do have a better insight with the action taking place inside the ring.

Ringnews24.com: Could you tell us a bit about and how and why you became become a referee?
Ian John Lewis: In 1989 I was hired to spar with the very good fighter Gary Jacobs from Scotland, we had a week of intensive sparring and to be honest we kicked the hell out of each other on a daily basis. I was chatting to my manager he asked me what I was going to do after my career, I was considering going into coaching and training fighters. He said "I think you would make a excellent referee" which did stick in my mind after I retired from the ring

Ringnews24.com: Who were your favourite fighters when you were growing up?, Who is your favourite ref from the past and in the US?
Ian John Lewis: Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler,as regards to the referee I wanted to be the UK version of Richard Steel of the USA referee who was one of the very best in my opinion.

Read More: http://ringnews24.com//index.php/boxing ... z1hAs3IH8C

Interesting final question at the end who pays the refs?

MachoMan09 wrote:The old promoter paying the referee quandary. It would seem that our automatic assumption is that an official being paid by a promoter will favour the house fighter. In doing so, we are doubting the very integrity of every single person who decides to become a referee. I've been guilty of doing this myself but I've since re-evaluated and changed my opinion. I don't think we have many, if any, bent referees. I still think we have some referees who aren't very good, though. Interestingly, we don't automatically assume that the medical personnel in attendance - also paid by the promoter - will provide preferential treatment to the house fighter. Maybe this is because we are brought up to trust medics and hate refs.

Good reply Macho, I don't see a difference really of Promoters paying the refs directly, if it went through the board they would probably take a cut possibly. But it would look less dodgy if the money was sent to the board first. Did Delahoya not pay the ref of Khan/Peterson enough? lol. I'd just put it down to bad reffing and judges, rather than corrupt. Too many fans like conspiracies.

Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

Dan Dares wrote:Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

We could of been there all day asking about his decision in this and that fight, the questions that are in the interview are questions that fans submitted to us, no one submitted a Lynes/Purdy question.

We have a ask the star section were we let fans submit questions and we pick the best ones, in January we have Chris Eubank Jr, Alex Arthur and Austin Trout.

If you have any questions for these guys Dan i'd be happy to add it to the interviews in Jan, just leave a reply here.

Dan Dares wrote:Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

Or Ainscough v Reed, a bout that he certainly didn't score for the "full 3 minutes of a round"...I can't help but feel the whole interview makes Ian seem even more inept than I already thought he was. If he feels it only takes 1 punch to change a fight then why would he ever stop a bout? How can he really say it only takes 1 punch to stop a bout and then allow Klitschko v Briggs to go 12 rounds? How can he also claim he ignored Bernard's tricks which were often fouls? Surely he shouldn't have been ignoring fouls no matter how crafty?

The guy admits what we all know about the promoters and sadly this is an issue the board needs to sort out...though lets be honest the board never disciplined Ian for his numerous balls ups so why would they start to get something right and take a fee from the promoters and split it between the medics, referees and judges just like they SHOULD?

Dan Dares wrote:Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

Exactly..

Or how about allowing Briggs to take an inhumane beating against Vitali,

Or his shocking Refereeing in the Pascal-Hopkins bout where he ruled three potential knockdowns of Pascal as Slips and allowed Pascal to wrestle and rabbit punch almost at will.

Fact is he will allow certain things in one bout, but not in the next. What does that tell you ?

It tell's me that IJL is the kind of referee that knows which side his bread is buttered, and will ensure any script is followed.

observer1 wrote:

Dan Dares wrote:Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

Exactly..

Or how about allowing Briggs to take an inhumane beating against Vitali,

Or his shocking Refereeing in the Pascal-Hopkins bout where he ruled three potential knockdowns of Pascal as Slips and allowed Pascal to wrestle and rabbit punch almost at will.

Fact is he will allow certain things in one bout, but not in the next. What does that tell you ?

It tell's me that IJL is the kind of referee that knows which side his bread is buttered, and will ensure any script is followed.

Don't forget the Ainscough v Reed scorecard which PROVES he doesn't watch 3 minutes of a round before scoring it.

iamasadlittleboy wrote:

observer1 wrote:

Dan Dares wrote:Why didn't the interviewer ask IJL about his ridiculous Lynes v Purdy scorecard, where he scored it a 114-114 draw?

Did IJL have shit in his eyes that evening??

Exactly..

Or how about allowing Briggs to take an inhumane beating against Vitali,

Or his shocking Refereeing in the Pascal-Hopkins bout where he ruled three potential knockdowns of Pascal as Slips and allowed Pascal to wrestle and rabbit punch almost at will.

Fact is he will allow certain things in one bout, but not in the next. What does that tell you ?

It tell's me that IJL is the kind of referee that knows which side his bread is buttered, and will ensure any script is followed.

Don't forget the Ainscough v Reed scorecard which PROVES he doesn't watch 3 minutes of a round before scoring it.

Not seen it myself but was that the prizefighter incident?

I dont want to IJL corrupt, but he surely cant be THAT dopey and incompetent

observer1 wrote:

iamasadlittleboy wrote:

observer1 wrote: Exactly..

Or how about allowing Briggs to take an inhumane beating against Vitali,

Or his shocking Refereeing in the Pascal-Hopkins bout where he ruled three potential knockdowns of Pascal as Slips and allowed Pascal to wrestle and rabbit punch almost at will.

Fact is he will allow certain things in one bout, but not in the next. What does that tell you ?

It tell's me that IJL is the kind of referee that knows which side his bread is buttered, and will ensure any script is followed.

Don't forget the Ainscough v Reed scorecard which PROVES he doesn't watch 3 minutes of a round before scoring it.

Not seen it myself but was that the prizefighter incident?

I dont want to IJL corrupt, but he surely cant be THAT dopey and incompetent

Yeah the Prizefighter incident with a 10-10 round that included a knock down...complete disgrace and one that he then seemed to get swept under-the-carpet as he had the Pascal-Hopkins fight lined up.

I thought equally as bad was his 115-113 scorecard for Tony Hill against Kerry Hope nots so long ago. If it wasn't for the 10-8 last round (we would assume - never know with IJL) then who know how he might have scored it. To have it level going to the last was rediculous.

iamasadlittleboy wrote:

observer1 wrote:

iamasadlittleboy wrote: Don't forget the Ainscough v Reed scorecard which PROVES he doesn't watch 3 minutes of a round before scoring it.

Not seen it myself but was that the prizefighter incident?

I dont want to IJL corrupt, but he surely cant be THAT dopey and incompetent

Yeah the Prizefighter incident with a 10-10 round that included a knock down...complete disgrace and one that he then seemed to get swept under-the-carpet as he had the Pascal-Hopkins fight lined up.

Call me pedantic, but equally as bad in the Hopkins vs Pascal fight was that he didn't clean down Hopkins' glove after him doing the press ups. He could have had his gloves contaminated with anything.

Now i think of it, what about the Tom Dallas v Zack Page (always seems to get robbed) result?

Does IJL not think, in retrospect, it was a bit silly, being from Kent, to ref a fight in Kent featuring a fighter from Kent and give the nod to the guy from Kent when he was outboxed? What sort of impression does he think this gives the casual boxing observer?

78-76 to Dallas. Have a look at the fight and see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuFTLYQ4 ... ure=relmfu

Ringnews24 - I'm not knocking your interview, and its nice to be nice, but if youre going back in January, these are the sort of questions you should be asking him. You'll get loads more hits.

Promoters paying the officials is something that needs to be addressed. I think the promoters should pay the board the amount that the officials are due to get before the card and then the Board can distribute the payments to the officials. It makes to much sense.

It is hard to respect Ian John Lewis still after that interview. He has had a very bad year and is the only British official who sticks out for having a bad year.

The sad thing is, you will get the inevitable few who will stand up for him. Which in turn, means their accepting corruption and incompetence as a whole.

The questions people seem to want answering need to be directed at members of the Board rather than individulas involved, like IJL.

An individual can make a mistake, either genuinely (as I believe) or less so. But, it is the responsibility of the Board to set the agenda when it comes to dealing with mistakes. The fact that they have been generally silent on a range of poor / peculiar decisions is more worrying than the actions of a number of individuals.

Re: payment of referees - I have no problem with this as it should be the responsibility of promoters to pay for all support services to put on a show. One question I would have is who appoints the referees? If a Promoter can choose which refs (and judges) appear on his shows, that would be a huge conflict of interest.

While people have questions about his scoring, ref wise he is excellent

Coco wrote:While people have questions about his scoring, ref wise he is excellent

I aint sure he did a good job protecting Shannon Briggs.

stujones wrote:

Coco wrote:While people have questions about his scoring, ref wise he is excellent

I aint sure he did a good job protecting Shannon Briggs.

Or the numerous mistakes in the Hopkines v Pascal II match where he failed to wipe the gloves and allowed Hopkins away, almost un-warned, about his tactics.

iamasadlittleboy wrote:

stujones wrote:

Coco wrote:While people have questions about his scoring, ref wise he is excellent

I aint sure he did a good job protecting Shannon Briggs.

Or the numerous mistakes in the Hopkines v Pascal II match where he failed to wipe the gloves and allowed Hopkins away, almost un-warned, about his tactics.

Hopkins was surprisingly clean that bout. It was Pascal who was doing the wrestling, rabbit punching and hitting between breaks.

I think that having promoters pay referees and other officials is a terrible mistake. Even on a subconscious level, it is going to affect decision making processes, it is simply unavoidable.

It's a ridiculous situation that has long needed addressing.

After reading some of your replys I have been in touch today with the BBBofC to arrange a fans interview, after a few emails back n forth they agreed to a interview.

The interview will take place on the Ringnews24 forum were fans can submit there questions.

I'll contact my online friend and boxrec editor Ian to see if it would be ok to start a topic on Boxrec to gather the Boxrec members questions as well which will also go into the interview.

MachoMan09 wrote:

earsjohn wrote:One question I would have is who appoints the referees? If a Promoter can choose which refs (and judges) appear on his shows, that would be a huge conflict of interest.

That is the question that needs answering. I don't know the answer. Think back to Ricky's pomp, when he was still with Sports Network. Can it really have been simple coincidence that Mickey Vann was the third man in so many of the Hitman's fights?

The board appoint the referee for each contest.

Depending on the size of the bill and if there are any titles depends on the number of officials needed. The board will charge the promoter X amount for the officials, the promoter has no say in who is chosen or who refs what fight and a representative of the board will pay the officials.

BBBofC Interview
http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=146925

taffytoon wrote:Depending on the size of the bill and if there are any titles depends on the number of officials needed. The board will charge the promoter X amount for the officials, the promoter has no say in who is chosen or who refs what fight and a representative of the board will pay the officials.

Doesnt happen like that? The officials que up with the boxers afterwards with who ever is paying the wages and get there money off that person have seen and done this many time.You dont have say whos appointed that bit is right.