As I have said before, and I?ll say again, I think that referee Joseph Cooper was probably inept enough to benefit both sides in the Amir Khan-Lamont Peterson fight. At the same time, I realize why the Khan camp must be upset, because even if Cooper?s appearance did not constitute a conflict of interest, it did give off, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict. And it is an issue important enough to address, maybe not for the reason Khan thinks it is, but in the respect that it flies in the face of some of rules under which the fight should have been conducted.
We have had a number of occasions like this through the years, most of which have not gotten a lot of attention. A notable exception was in 2002, when Kirk Johnson was disqualified in a WBA heavyweight title fight against John Ruiz in Las Vegas. The managers and promoter of Johnson were hung up on the idea that the referee, Joe Cortez, was out of line in penalizing Johnson on a couple of occasions and then in eventually giving him the DQ. That?s what they wanted to protest with the WBA. I knew that was not likely to fly, because it involved a referee?s discretion and judgment, just as it did in the Khan-Peterson fight.
But I found something elsewhere.
Ruiz was not only an American, while Johnson was a Canadian, but Ruiz was living in Las Vegas at the time, and that is where all the officials came from. I discovered that this was completely outside the rules that were allowed for by the WBA at the time.
In Section 16, Paragraph 2 of the WBA?s ?World Championship Regulations and Rules? is states that:
?The officials appointed by the President to act in any Championship fight shall be NEUTRAL, this being understood to mean that they shall not be of the same nationality, residence or origin of the champion or of the challenger.?
