LAURENCE COLE ? WHAT A REFEREE SHOULDN?T BE
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 16 Dec 2013
A friend of mine, a respected and well informed writer from Manila sent me a message during the heat of battle between Marcos Maidana and the now deflated former champion, Adrien Broner.
He asked:- ?How come Laurence Cole gets all the Texas assignments? Is his Dad that powerful?? This is BS!?
In jest, I replied to him saying that ?they own the State of Texas.?
Well at least in boxing.
Truth is there are not too many referees in Texas with the connections of Laurence Cole. His dad is Dickie Cole, head of the Texas Boxing Commission and therefore he gets all the juicy assignments, ability and fairness as a referee, notwithstanding.
There would not be too many problems having the younger Cole arbitrate fights in Texas, regardless of how huge they may be, other than nepotism, if competence and fair play is assured.
But unfortunately, in some cases like the Maidana-Broner, it was not there. Cole failed miserably as the referee. He was biased and unfair.
Cole immediately deducted a point from Maidana when out of frustration from being constantly held by Broner, the Argentine purposely used his head as a weapon. He head butted Broner and the Cincinnati kid immediately did a poor Hollywood acting job by dropping to the canvas.
To his credit however, Cole did not buy the act and asked Broner to continue to fight after a mandatory rest.
But, Cole never exercised fair play other than soft warnings to Broner for constantly pushing, using his forearm and elbows as a weapon.
More importantly, he took a blind eye when Broner intentionally slugged Maidana after the bell rung ending round 11.
Laurence Cole as the referee should have exercised fair play. But last night, he appeared to be the ?house referee? by being partial to the ?house fighter?, Broner.
Cole?s poor officiating at the fight is ridiculous. He totally forgot that he had a job to do.
His performance was a disgrace to the already tainted sports called professional boxing.
But such is boxing. It?s all about connections - in getting jobs as referees, judges and big fights. In Texas however, if it?s more obvious owing to the presence of the Cole family.
Sad!
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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