Veteran referee Joe Cortez won't be working the February 28 lightweight championship showdown between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz, as Marquez has rejected Cortez's services for the bout.
Cortez has been under a lot of fire the last couple years, starting with his officiating in the Mayweather-Hatton bout, then followed by some complaints about his performance in the Hopkins-Calzaghe fight, and then it all sort of spilled into one of the worst calls in years when he disqualified Humberto Soto against Francisco Lorenzo the first time around. Unless I'm forgetting something (and I may be), I don't think Joe has reffed a major title fight since the Soto-Lorenzo fiasco.
Marquez called Cortez "the enemy" of Mexican boxers, which I think is pretty dumb, and sort of hides the fact that Marquez doesn't want Cortez to referee his fight because he thinks he's bad at his job, which is going to be a factor in Cortez's career. When a high-profile fighter like Marquez won't let a name guy referee his fight, it sort of sends a message out to other fighters, promoters, athletic commissions, etc.