Immediate steps have been taken to strengthen the officiating pool for Nevada-based fights.

Veteran referee Mark Nelson has been tabbed to maintain order in the Junto Nakatani-Andrew Moloney vacant WBO junior bantamweight title fight this Saturday at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Minnesota-based Nelson is widely regarded as one of the best active officials in the sport and was unanimously approved by the five-person panel for the Nevada State Athletic Commission monthly agenda hearing Wednesday in Las Vegas.

The fight will mark the first time that Nelson has served as referee for any fight involving Japan’s Nakatani (24-0, 18KOs) or Australia’s Moloney (25-2, 16KOs).

The three judges—also met without objection by the five-member NAC panel or either camp—are Patricia Morse Jarman (Nevada), Max DeLuca (California) and Benoit Roussel (Canada).

Per NAC, Nelson will earn $1,8000 as referee, while the three judges will each earn $1,400 for the ESPN-televised title fight preceding the ESPN Pay-Per-View event headlined by the Devin Haney-Vasiliy Lomachenko undisputed lightweight championship.

Of the three ringside scorers, only judge Morse Jarman has worked a bout involving either boxer. She had Moloney losing to Joshua Franco in their June 2020 WBA ‘Regular’ junior bantamweight title fight in Las Vegas. Morse Jarman and Dave Moretti each scored the bout 114-113 for Franco, while Julie Lederman had it 115-112 as Moloney lost his secondary title and suffered his first career defeat.

Nakatani fights for the first time in Las Vegas and just the second time in the U.S. The former WBO flyweight titlist earned a fourth-round stoppage of Angel Acosta in a September 2021 defense of his old title in Tucson, Arizona.

Moloney returns to the U.S. after having fought two straight times in Melbourne, Australia. The bout with Nakatani is his fifth overall in the U.S., the first two of which took place in Vegas in back-to-back 2020 outings versus Franco. Their third fight took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in August 2021, while an eighth-round knockout of Alexander Espinoza last April 9 was held in Costa Mesa, California.

Nelson is one of two out-of-state officials to oversee a major title fight on this weekend’s show in Vegas. As previously reported by Boxing Scene’s Keith Idec, New York’s Harvey Dock was appointed as the referee for the Haney-Lomachenko lightweight championship.

The appointments of Dock and Nelson come in the wake of an officiating scandal endured in Vegas this past weekend.

Industry-wide criticism rained down on referee Tony Weeks in his premature stoppage of the May 13 Rolando Romero-Ismael Barroso vacant WBA junior welterweight title fight at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Romero was dropped in round three and trailed on three scorecards through eight rounds when he was credited with a questionable knockdown in the ninth, shortly before Weeks stopped the contest at 2:41 of round nine.

Venezuela’s Barroso (24-4-2, 22KOs) was dumbfounded when he was ruled down earlier in the round, as replays clearly showed that Romero inadvertently pushed him to the canvas. Weeks’ night would get much worse later in the round when he jumped in to stop the contest, despite the fact that Barroso either slipped or blocked three punches thrown by Romero, who also vocally questioned the stoppage despite being awarded a technical knockout victory and the vacant WBA junior welterweight title.

Weeks’ name was not included among the pool of available officials for either of the two title fights during Wednesday’s meeting. Appointed officials are not publicly discussed during these meetings for non-title fights.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox