What was your general opinions on the ref.

yeah the ref did good that low blow by oscar was like whoa how did he not catch it but hey wasnt hopkins bullying de la hoya for a while and pushing

Has Bayless ever been great in any fight?Great? No. And the word does not appear in any paragraph that I wrote and you quoted. Read again. Saying that Bayless "...did as I expected..." in officiating a specific fight, is not tantamount to saying he was great, in that or any other fight. At best, it means, that in my view he was satisfactory during that fight referred to. Notice that I said he missed some low blows. That could not be near a great performance, could it be? That I want him to teach Nady some, shows how much I regard Nady's performance in the fights that I saw him officiate. That I also said, that it was one of the best performance of a referree last year (2004) showed how low my opinion is of refs' showing in that year. A near-satisfactory performance becomes one of the best. It's as simple as that. No more, no less. Not "great". Next time, read closely.

Bayless did as well as I expected. He did not break the fighters up prematurely, which is the officiating style he has consistently shown in previous fights I saw him officiate. He intervened only when necessary and with authority. He allowed both fighters to determine among themselves how the fight should be fought (within the rules) instead of imposing his own assumptions, inclinations and character; he seemed always aware that fans came to watch the fighters not the ref. His having missed low blows (which,I agree, appeared to have been all unintentional)was something I'm willing to overlook when this is stacked up alongside the manner he officiated the rest of the action in the 8 rounds + that the fight lasted.T'was one of the best ref showing that I've seen this year. Is there any way Bayless can clue in Nady some? Has Bayless ever been great in any fight?

Bayless did as well as I expected. He did not break the fighters up prematurely, which is the officiating style he has consistently shown in previous fights I saw him officiate. He intervened only when necessary and with authority. He allowed both fighters to determine among themselves how the fight should be fought (within the rules) instead of imposing his own assumptions, inclinations and character; he seemed always aware that fans came to watch the fighters not the ref. His having missed low blows (which,I agree, appeared to have been all unintentional)was something I'm willing to overlook when this is stacked up alongside the manner he officiated the rest of the action in the 8 rounds + that the fight lasted.T'was one of the best ref showing that I've seen this year. Is there any way Bayless can clue in Nady some?

He did a great job, hardly knew he was there.

The low blows were unintentional and the punches only strayed downstairs because Hopkins was holding his head down. Hopkins also did his share of hitting low as well. Bayless did a good job like he always does.

He seemed like a good referee, he stamped his authority when things got abit rough. Overall he did a good job in my opinion. Oscar did catch Bernard with the odd low blow but i don't think they were intentional, it's not Oscars style.