When ring judge Arthur Mercante Jr. re-started Saturday’s fight between junior-middleweight champion Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto at Yankee Stadium, it wasn’t clear who had thrown a white towel into the ring in an effort to stop the bout.

Mercante, a seasoned professional and the son of legendary referee, Arthur Mercante Sr. said he had too much respect for the champion to allow someone else to decide if he would lose his belt.

“You know what? I’m a referee who doesn’t like to disqualify or take points,” Mercante said after the fight. “I don’t like to see a guy lose a championship by disqualification.”

Well after the match ended Mercante put the pieces together. Fanhouse Boxing reported that the loud voice he heard, demanding the fight be stopped was Foreman’s wife, Leyla Leidecker, herself a former boxer.

The white towel was determined, ultimately to have come from Foreman’s corner, thrown by trainer Joe Grier. But in Mercante’s opinion, he was feeling pressure from the boxer’s spouse.

From Fanhouse: “What it was is, you’ve got your wife at ringside. That’s what it was. She’s yelling and screaming. And hey, I can understand that. Hey, I can see that. But that’s why wives should be in the 10th, 12th, 15th row,” said Mercante.

Say what you will about Mercante but he is old school. Not just in his view of where the boxers’ female companions should sit, but also about toughing it out despite an injury that made Foreman more than ineffective, it took away his ability to win.

Prior to the eighth round confusion, he had continued to encourage Foreman to “walk it off, champ.”

He gave the fighter enough time to steady himself after what looked to be painful falls from his knee buckling right out from under him.

It appeared as though he was giving the young man courage that he might not have had without Mercante’s insistence that he keep going.

Yuri Foreman lost his championship only after the referee had seen enough in the ninth round to convince him that Foreman had absorbed too much and was no longer in a position to take it.

But not until that precise moment occurred would the assertive, or shall we call him, aggressive Mercante allow his opinion to be swayed.

He evicted dozens of people from the ring in that eighth round.

They had jumped in after Foreman’s corner went through the ropes to try and make it official. First the towel, then the corner men stepped into the ring, followed by the usual TV cameras, print photographers, fight officials and Michael Buffer himself.

He threw out Michael Buffer, microphone in hand ready to announce the stoppage. Mercante would not be denied.

There wasn’t one moment of doubt in his mind that he could make the ultimate decision. He confirmed it by asking Foreman if he was OK to continue or wanted to stop.

He took the side of the fighter and didn’t care who was embarrassed, confused or made to look like wimps. His kindness was acknowledged by Foreman after the bout.

Now that’s old school.

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

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