BOXING : It Says Here, Steele Did the Right Thing

Richard Steele, with good reason, has refereed virtually every major boxing event in Las Vegas for the last couple of years.

Chuck Minker, the Nevada Athletic Commission’s executive director, doesn’t say Steele is Nevada’s best referee for fear of offending other big-name Nevada referees such as Mills Lane and Carlos Padilla. Instead, Minker points to the long list of major fights Steele has been assigned to work in recent years.

“Just look at the bouts we’ve assigned him to work--that pretty much speaks for itself,” Minker said, citing all the recent Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard fights given to Steele.

We’ve said here before that pro boxing is the world’s most poorly officiated sport. But the 46-year-old Steele’s work is a noteworthy exception to a sorry field. He just may be America’s best pro boxing referee.

Last Saturday night, Steele was working his 70th world title fight at the Las Vegas Hilton. And when he stopped the Julio Cesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor fight with two seconds to go, he did exactly the right thing.

The implications of terminating the bout at that point were enormous.

If two more seconds had elapsed, Taylor would have been the winner on the scorecards, would have had two of the three pieces of the light-welterweight title instead of none and would today be making plans for a $4-million pay-per-view purse to fight Hector Camacho.

Steele didn’t care.

Devil’s Advocate: “But Richard, there were only two seconds left!”

Steele didn’t care.

“I’m not the timekeeper, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I knew exactly how much time was left, which I didn’t,” he said.

“The safety of the fighter is my primary job in there, and I didn’t want (Taylor) to take one more punch. I looked into his eyes and saw a fighter who’d fought his heart out and who had had enough. When you give a fighter a standing-eight count, he has to be in some kind of shape to continue, and he wasn’t. When I asked him if he was OK, I got no response.”

Possibly, Taylor was distracted by the sight of his emotional 67-year-old trainer, Lou Duva, who was on the ring apron, yelling at Steele.

For sure, Steele was distracted by Duva. On the video, we see Steele looking at Duva four times during the count.

This is of major importance.

Because just maybe, if Duva is not on the apron, Steele is instead spending all of the eight-count looking at Taylor. Just maybe during that added time he sees the blinking red light, indicating that the fight has less than 10 seconds remaining.

Just maybe, Taylor, through the pain and haze, would have responded to Steele’s critical “You OK?” question instead of looking at Duva and wondering what he was doing on the apron.

Just maybe, had he not been distracted by Duva, Steele would have noticed that Chavez was in his own corner during the count on Taylor and not in a neutral corner, as boxing rules require. Just maybe, Steele would have interrupted his count to order Chavez to go there. If that takes two seconds, the fight’s over and the winner is Taylor, not Chavez.

So for Duva and his son, Dan, Taylor’s promoter, to blast away at Steele in the aftermath almost defies belief, when one can construct several scenarios whereby possibly Duva, not Steele, cost Taylor the fight.

Steele said afterward that he interpreted Duva’s frantic behavior on the apron as a plea to have the fight stopped. Duva said later that another corner man, Ronny Shields, told him he thought he’d heard the bell during the count. Duva said he went to the apron to yell at Steele that the fight was over.

Whatever, it’s not the first time Duva has been involved in a controversial finish to a Las Vegas fight.

The fiery trainer, who handled former middleweight champion Joey Giardello in the 1950s, wound up taking a punch at Roger Mayweather seconds after Mayweather beat Duva’s fighter, Vinny Pazienza, in November, 1988. Mayweather tapped Duva on the chin, knocking him down.

For that unseemly episode, the Nevada commission fined Duva $750.

And Duva’s angry assertion Saturday in the post-fight HBO interview that Taylor “wasn’t gettin’ hurt in there” more than any other comment, speaks volumes about how some boxing people balance their slices of seven-digit, down-the-road purses against their athletes’ welfare.

Chavez-Taylor was a classic. But in the intensity of a dramatic major fight as this one was, it’s often difficult to remember that boxing is, as has often been shown, a dangerous activity.

And when Steele said afterward, “I didn’t want (Taylor) to take one more punch,” you can only conclude he was more concerned about Meldrick Taylor’s welfare than Lou Duva was.

Don’t send in for tickets yet for the Chavez-Taylor rematch. It’s possible that Taylor, who came down from a between-fights weight of 155 to 160 pounds, won’t fight at 140 again.

If there is a rematch, it may not be until both have moved up to welterweight, after Chavez has unified the light-welter title.

The World Boxing Assn. said Monday that Taylor is the No. 1 contender for a rematch with Chavez.

However, Taylor, a notorious fast-food/pizza addict, must reform his eating habits.

“Meldrick told us he’s finally learned his lesson, that he can’t let his weight get so high between fights,” said Kathy Duva, Dan Duva’s wife.

“We’re going to insist he eat a proper diet, and see if he can’t stay below 150 pounds between fights. If he can, then he can probably fight at 140 again.”

The Duvas, who also promote No. 1-ranked heavyweight Evander Holyfield, made their litigation move in the Buster Douglas-Don King-Steve Wynn-Donald Trump legal morass last week by filing suit in New Jersey state court against all three governing bodies.

Dan Duva said that the suit seeks to force, with a restraining order, the three governing bodies to follow their own rules and force purse bids to get the Douglas-Holyfield bout out of the courts.

“When a champion and a No. 1 contender can’t agree on terms, then you go to purse bids, with promoters submitting sealed bids,” Duva said. “The champion gets 75%, the challenger 25%.

“We don’t care who the promoter is or where the fight is. Evander has been No. 1 for over a year. This has gone on long enough. The Wynn-King suit is a final judgment kind of action, one that King could take to the Supreme Court. It could take years.

“We’ll show in court that Evander’s title shot is in danger of being delayed too long by court action. Purse bids are a simple mechanism for avoiding all of that.

“My opinion is that if it comes down to a purse-bid situation, Wynn and King will get together on a deal. If it goes to purse bid, Wynn would be in a bidding contest with Trump and the last thing Wynn wants is for Trump to make him look like a piker.”

Duva also said John Johnson is mismanaging Douglas by defending the title in September instead of June.

“He doesn’t want Buster to fight until September because, he says, he wants Buster to take advantage of endorsements. What endorsements? He can earn more in interest in one week from his share of that $25 million Wynn offer than he can from any endorsement deals they’re looking at.

“Besides, in another month, Buster’s going to weigh 290.”