New York Codes, Rules and Regulations › Title 19 - DEPARTMENT OF STATE › Chapter VII - State Athletic Commission › Part 211 - Special Rules for Professional Boxing › Section 211.34 - Referee's powers and duties

Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 28, July 10, 2024
The referee shall exercise immediate authority, direction and
				  control over contests and exhibitions to which he or she has been appointed.
				  Before the start of each contest or exhibition under his or her direction, the
				  referee shall ascertain the identity of the chief seconds of the respective
				  participants and shall hold such chief seconds responsible for their own
				  conduct and for the conduct of their respective assistant seconds in all
				  matters pertinent to the contest or exhibition; the referee shall give such
				  instructions to the participants and their seconds in the dressing room as he
				  or she shall deem appropriate; the referee shall have and exercise in his or
				  her discretion, the authority to remove or cause to be removed from the ring
				  and or the vicinity thereof any person who interferes or attempts to interfere
				  with the conduct of the contest or exhibition; before the start of each such
				  contest or exhibition and from time to time, as he or she shall see fit, during
				  the course thereof, he or she shall check the participants' gloves, equipment,
				  and persons to assure that no unsafe or improper condition or conditions shall
				  be permitted to exist; he or she shall observe carefully and continually the
				  physical condition of the participants and shall have full and final
				  responsibility, either at his or her own discretion or upon recommendation from
				  the attending ringside physician for the immediate halting of any contest or
				  exhibition wherein, for any reason, the safety of a participant would be
				  jeopardized by continuance. The referee shall have exclusive authority in the
				  event of injury to a participant, to interrupt the progress of a round by
				  directing the timekeeper to stop the clock and calling the ringside physician
				  into the ring to examine and advise upon the condition of the injured
				  participant. If it shall be decided by the referee upon advice of the physician
				  that such participant is fit to continue, the referee shall direct the
				  timekeeper to start the clock and the round shall be resumed from the point of
				  interruption, provided, however, that no such interruption of a round shall be
				  ordered when the condition of the distressed party is such as would be
				  materially remedied by an unscheduled rest period, except where the injury
				  involved shall have resulted from a foul action by the opposing participant,
				  when the referee, upon advice of the attending physician, shall order such
				  reasonable rest period as shall be appropriate. The referee shall enforce the
				  rules of boxing, as set forth by the Commission, as well as those rules
				  generally recognized in the sport under the traditional title of the Marquis of
				  Queensbury Rules, as modified to current date by usage and written authority;
				  the referee shall be authorized, in the event of foul tactics by a participant,
				  to take away a point or points from the score of such participant at the end of
				  the round in which such foul tactics shall have occurred, and when the referee
				  has taken such action, he or she shall inform the judges and the chief seconds
				  of the participants of the ruling prior to the start of the next round; the
				  referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a contest or exhibition at
				  any stage because of a major foul being committed by either participant and to
				  award the decision, under the circumstances, to the fouled participant; the
				  referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a contest or exhibition at
				  any stage if he or she considers that one or both participants are failing to
				  perform according to due standards of effort, ability or conduct, and in such
				  event may disqualify one or both participants and if only one participant is
				  disqualified the referee may award the contest or exhibition to the other by
				  technical knockout; the referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a
				  contest or exhibition at any stage on the grounds that it is too one-sided. In
				  such event, he or she may award the contest or exhibition to the superior
				  participant as a technical knockout; the referee shall have the exclusive
				  authority to decide whether or not a boxer is knocked down during the course of
				  a round and shall indicate such decision to the timekeeper or alternate referee
				  whose count shall be accordingly continued or discontinued, and, if the count
				  is to be continued, the referee shall pick it up orally and by gesture after
				  first assuring that the opponent of the fallen participant shall have retreated
				  to the most distant neutral corner of the ring; at the conclusion of each
				  contest or exhibition under his or her direction, the referee shall confirm to
				  the announcer and to the Commission, the official result and whether it shall
				  have been by decision on points, by knockout, by technical knockout, or by
				  disqualification.