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Referees and judges are in place for Saturday night's three world title fights on Showtime pay-per-view, with two more bouts taking place as part of the televised card, as well. The main event, of course, will see Floyd Mayweather defend his WBC and WBA welterweight titles, as well as his WBC junior middleweight title (but not his WBA junior middleweight title) against Marcos Maidana in a rematch of their May encounter.
Here's a quick rundown of the listed officials.
Floyd Mayweather vs Marcos Maidana
Referee: Kenny Bayless
Judges: John McKaie (NY) / Dave Moretti (NV) / Guido Cavalleri (Italy)
Mayweather complained about the performance of referee Tony Weeks in May, saying he felt that Weeks was too lenient and let Maidana get away with more than his fair share of roughhousing. Whether that complaint was really valid or not is, like much in boxing, up to interpretation and personal tastes.
Bayless, like Weeks, is a highly-respected referee, and says he doesn't envision any issues in the fight. Bayless was the referee for last year's Mayweather-Canelo fight.
The judges are all veterans, for better or worse, and is in theory a neutral and balanced collective.
Leo Santa Cruz vs Manuel Roman
Referee: Robert Byrd (NV)
Judges: Burt Clements (NV) / Cathy Leonard (NC) / Max DeLuca (CA)
Byrd is a Hall of Fame referee who we just saw Thursday night, when he got a little spotlight for a faux-controversial stoppage in the Luis Ortiz-Lateef Kayode main event on FOX Sports 1. He's another respected official.
The judges are Clements, well-known in Nevada; DeLuca, another known entity; and Leonard, who continues sort of climbing the ranks, as she's been getting more and more high-profile assignments recently. She still works lower-level fights in her home state, and has also been drafted in to judge the Khan-Collazo and Kameda-Pungluang fights this year in Las Vegas. She's also worked in Texas (for Berto-Soto Karass iin 2013), Japan, and Mexico.
Miguel Vazquez vs Mickey Bey
Referee: Tony Weeks (NV)
Judges: Adalaide Byrd (NV) / Robert Hoyle (NV) / Julie Lederman (NY)
Weeks, along with Bayless and Byrd, represents the class of the Nevada referees, and they've been given the three world title fights for Saturday.
Byrd, the wife of referee Robert, has had what I consider a couple of notably good scorecards in recent years. She was the only one of three judges to rightly score Richar Abril the winner against Brandon Rios in 2012, and she had the Kelly Pavlik-Alfonso Lopez fight in 2011 a draw, which was far more reasonable than the 98-92 and 99-91 cards Pavlik received from the other two judges
Like Mrs. Byrd, Hoyle and Lederman are veteran judges you've seen judge tons of notable fights in the past.