By Ryan Maquiñana
In light of the controversy surrounding referee Russell Mora’s actions (or lack thereof) regarding low blows in last Saturday’s Showtime Bantamweight Tournament final between Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko, BoxingScene.com sought out a veteran referee to offer his opinion on the matter.
Jon Schorle has been the third man in the ring for 20 major world title fights, most recently junior lightweight Takahiro Ao’s successful first title defense against Humberto Gutierrez in Japan. By his admission, Schorle had only watched the first round of Mares-Agbeko, and therefore did not feel it was appropriate for him to directly appraise Mora’s performance.
However, it turned out to be a perfect time for him to put Saturday in perspective by applying his personal protocol in preventing and punishing low blows. Here’s a transcript of our conversation.
BoxingScene: Before every fight, how do you establish what’s going to be considered a low blow with both sides?
Jon Schorle: What I do is I start in the dressing room. I tell the corner people, “If you don’t eye their cup height in the back, it’s going to creep up. And if it creeps up and I can’t see his belly button, then you leave it up to my imagination where the beltline is.” So I stress the importance of talking to the corner beforehand so they’re aware of what’s legal. Sometimes they listen, and sometimes they don’t, but then again. I check it anyway.
I did a boxing show Saturday night in Texas. For every fighter who came up, I said, “This is the beltline, or this one’s high, or this one’s OK,” and so forth. I show each of the fighters with my hands what is legal and what is not. Even if they don’t speak English, they understand. You use hand signals. I’ll say in Spanish, “Aqui bueno, si.” In English, “Here it’s OK.” Things like that.
BoxingScene: How many warnings is enough for you to deduct a point? Are there different levels of warnings as well?
Jon Schorle: We can talk to them in the pros, whereas in the amateurs, you can’t. If certain shots stray low, I’ll tell the fighter to keep the punches up. That verbal warning is known as a soft warning. Again, I haven’t seen the whole fight yet, but when you stop the action, or you even when you don’t stop the action, but you get in between them, and show them what they’re doing, that’s called a hard warning. And after a couple of those hard warnings, you almost have to take a point.
BoxingScene: You’re known to do extensive research of both fighters before the bout. I’ve even heard of you moving the bed around in your hotel room while you watch a fight on the T.V. screen so you can simulate circling the ring and being the third man. In this case, Mares already had been mired in a low blow controversy in his previous fight with Vic Darchinyan. Does that come into play for you before you even step in the ring?
Jon Schorle: I do a couple things. If it’s a big fight, I get on Boxrec, and I look at their records, and I see the fights they had. It’s like a book. If the book is open, you can click on that, and it goes to the page that talks about the fight, who the ref was, who the judges were, and what their scores were. It’s kind of like a caption of what happened. It’s not an opinion. It’s fact. It doesn’t say whether the referee was terrible or great. It’s objective.
Another thing I do is go on YouTube. A lot of international fights that we don’t get here in America, you can get for YouTube. I did that when I was preparing for the fight between Saul Roman and Vanes Martirosyan. I watched as many fights of them as I could over and over and over just so I could see anything I could warn them about.
Here’s an example. I did [Joel] Casamayor vs. [Michael] Katsidis. Now Casamayor is one of the great fighters. He won a gold medal and world titles in two or three weight classes, but he’s notorious for throwing low blows. I talked to him through a translator in the prefight instructions, and I said, “Joel, you won a gold medal.” I asked him how many pro bouts he had. “Well then,” I said, “you know what a low blow is. I’m telling you right now this is your final warning. If you land one low blow in this fight there’s going to be no warning. Instead, I’m taking a point right away. I asked him, “Do you understand?”
I was very clear and he looked me right in the eye and said, “Si, Si.” In the tenth round, he got frustrated, and he got all cup. You know what hitting the cup sounds like. I stopped the action immediately, and took a point. He was pissed, but that’s it. I gave him a strong warning and I had to do what I said I’d do. So that’s what you get when you watch these fights and read about their records.
BoxingScene: One of the criticisms of Agbeko’s corner was that they were quiet as mice when the low blows accumulated over the first ten rounds. Then they exploded after the so-called knockdown in the 11th, but by then, it was too late. Would it behoove the corner to make these things known as early as possible if they see them during the fight?
Jon Schorle: I ask them in the dressing room. Do you have any concern about this fighter? It’s a loaded question, but I’d rather take five, ten, fifteen minutes answering their concerns in the locker room. Let’s clarify it then rather than in the ring. Plus, if they feel like they have a chance to vent in the locker room, they’ve let it out.
When they're in the corner, I really don’t listen to them. They’ve got so much energy. They mainly want to breed confusion. I try to stay as far away from the corners as I can unless it’s absolutely necessary.
I do appreciate a quiet corner. Look at the most professional corners. They never argue. Look at Freddie Roach. He’s never done that with me. I like them coaching their fighter and not coaching me, because if you allow them to do that, you allow them to take control of the fight.
So to answer your question about the corner voicing their opinion if I missed something, I guess yeah, I’d listen to them, and I guess I’d watch it a little more closer, but if I didn’t see in the first place, then honestly, I wasn’t doing my job.
BoxingScene: After the fight, Mora actually agreed to an interview with Jim Gray, which is something you don’t see very often in terms of officials fielding questions after controversial results. While Mora deserves credit for wanting to explain himself, it was as his own peril because he opened himself up for Gray’s interrogation. What’s your take speaking to media? Is it a referee’s place?
Jon Schorle: I don’t know what the current Executive Officer of the California commission, because he hasn’t told me, but normally in the past, they say not to speak to the press unless you’ve been given permission by them. Many times the floor manager will try to mic me up and do an interview, but I’ve said before that my Executive Officer won’t allow me to do that. To tell you the truth, I would rather not talk to them (the media), but I have talked to them before, and sometimes you do open yourself up to criticism. It is what it is.
BoxingScene: How about the theory that Mora was corrupt? Personally, I don’t believe that’s true. However, I will say that when one promoter holds most of the high-profile cards in Mora’s state of Nevada, that Mora could have been more susceptible to second-guessing himself when it came to calls that could adversely affect that promoter’s fighter. In other words, could he have been too mindful of losing out on his next plum job on a Golden Boy card that he was less willing to penalize a point from Mares if he could help it?
Jon Schorle: No comment.
BoxingScene: What’s your take on disciplining a referee for poor performance? I understand nobody’s perfect and people make mistakes. But we’re not talking about one or two blown calls here. It was egregiously bad for 12 rounds. Should he be suspended?
Jon Schorle: I don’t think Russell Mora is a dishonest guy. That’s my honest opinion. I read someone write that he was paid off. But I don’t think so at all.
About discipline, maybe they should call Russell Mora into the office, with [NSAC Executive Director] Keith [Kizer] and the most experienced referee, and watch it together. I don’t think they should suspend him but make it a learning experience for him to grow from there.
I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but I really think he’s an honest guy. If it was someone who was dishonest, then screw him. But I watch him a lot, and he tries really hard.
BoxingScene: But it cost someone a world title and now they have to do it all over again if Agbeko is lucky. How does a professional, experienced referee miss so many calls over and over?
Jon Schorle: It does make you wonder how that happens. If it’s once or twice, that’s one thing, but when it happens all night long over that many rounds, it makes you wonder. I can’t speak for him, and I still want to watch the whole thing.
BoxingScene: What about a temporary demotion in lieu of a suspension? Would you advocate doing that, because at least you wouldn’t be rewarding bad behavior?
Jon Schorle: Not over one fight. If it happened two or three or four times in a row, then you start looking hard at a referee, but not for one fight. But again, I need to watch the whole fight. That first round was hard. I can only imagine what the other eleven were like!
Ryan Maquiñana is the boxing correspondent at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. He’s a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring’s Ratings Advisory Panel. E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com, check out his blog at www.maqdown.com or follow him on Twitter: @RMaq28.