Ring Officials Summary from Duane Ford

Ring Officials Chief Duane Ford delivered a concise, precise and occasionally drily, wryly humorous presentation involving the culmination of two years of work, improving, revising and bettering the exacting work, which goes into comprehensively assessing a boxing match.

Before he started, The Goodfellow Award was presented to boxing publicist, history buff and legend in boxing Bill Caplan. A man so dedicated to his craft that he once lay across a car park entrance to prevent a champion boxer from driving away, because his opponent was impudently late. Of course, Bill saved the conference and the day! He was tyre- less.

The Statue was presented by World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman. Much as he`s accustomed to public speaking, Bill was stunned: “You could have knocked me down with a feather emotion. Straight from the heart Bill managed to so briefly say: “I can speak way too much at most times, but I can`t speak now.” Huge ripple of applause for a boxing legend, a great man and the loyalist person. Mauricio hugged Bill, saying: “Bill was a great friend to my father, he`s a great friend to me. Bill is the most passionate boxing man.”

Duane who was most comfortable off podium standing in front of the first row of seats, explained about the new judges` scoring card, which alongside the place for the ten-nine or otherwise, the categories of close, moderate, decisive, extreme and knockdown. The opportunity to specifically comment.

There are misconceptions about boxing bouts which include: The boxer had momentum at the end of the round. Boxer took the round off. Boxer was cut. Boxer walked through the punches.

Duane advises: “We want to keep things clean and simple. Continue scoring punches, effective aggression and ring generalship. We all see things differently. Our goal is to bring people to see the same thing.”

As Larry Holmes convinced Duane, an effective left jab can hit like a telegraph pole. It`s just as effective and worthy as other punches. A punch is effective when it forces an opponent to change the course of what they intend doing and they have to step back. Effective aggression can be precise counter punching. The control to effect peoples` actions or emotions. Judges need to know who is winning in all parts of the round.

Then on the big screen the chocolate under the cup screen attention game. Everyone was focusing in such a rigid single-minded fashion to find the sweet, that they didn`t notice a fifth pair of hands joining in the process. Or that blue cups turned to green of some cups vanished altogether. The lesson is to keep focusing but intelligently and perceptively, in the midst of a lot of distractions. An official has to learn to filter off all this and concentrate.

The great Vinny Paz presented Duane with Committe Chairman of the Year. So well deserved. Duane said: “The WBC has been my life. I thank you for your trust. I hope that when my life ends, we will have officials trained.”