Boxing News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Veteran Harvey Dock Will Referee Errol Spence vs. Terence Crawford

Originally posted on Big Fight Weekend | By T J Rives | Last updated 7/26/23

New Jersey based veteran championship referee Harvey Dock will be the third man in the ring for Saturday night’s undisputed world welterweight title clash between Errol Spence and Terence Crawford.

The move to use Dock was decided by the Nevada State Athletic Commission in addition to their picking of the three judges for the contest scheduled for 12 rounds at the T-Mobile Arena on the Vegas Strip.

Those judges will be veterans Tim Cheatham and Steve Weisfeld, who have worked numerous big-time championship and pay-per-view battles over the past few years and also veteran Judge David Sutherland who was involved in a controversy just this past weekend in Oklahoma.

First to Dock, who is best known recently for having been the referee in Devin Haney’s 12 round undisputed lightweight title win over Vasiliy Lomachenko back in May. Dock primarily works in New York and New Jersey, but obviously came out to Vegas for that main event.

He also previously worked the unified lightweight title bout where Austraian George Kambosos’ upset Teofimo Lopez at the Madison Square Garden Theater in 2021. Also, Dock most recently worked in that same building in the Matchroom Boxing main event win by super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga over Jason Quigley.

Dock was also the referee, seen at the top, for Caleb Plant’s brutal one punch knock out of Anthony Dirrell in Brooklyn, NY in October 2022.

Make sure to catch Spence-Crawford without needing a subscription to a service by using PPV.com Click the banner below for more info:

As for the judges, they are all familiar names and two of them like Dock worked the Haney-Lomachenko fight. Cheatham gave Haney the win 115 113 and Sutherland also agreed by the same score. There was some dispute over the decision including Lomachenko’s camp, which had objected to judge Dave Moretti being allowed to be involved in the bout. Moretti scored the fight 11-112 for the American.

Back to Sutherland. He was involved in the controversial Top Rank ESPN main event this past Saturday night in Shawnee, Oklahoma where he scored the George Kambosos – Maxi Hughes fight a 114- 114 draw. Kambosos won the fight on the other two judges wide score cards in a fight that most observers and fans believed that the Englishman Hughes actually decisively won.

Still, that did not matter to the Nevada commission putting Sutherland back into play if the Spence -Crawford battle goes the route.

As for Weisfeld, he has been frequently used by the Nevada commission and the world boxing organizations as a championship judge. This, includes him being one of the three judges that weren’t needed when Gervonta Davis knocked out Ryan Garcia in the 7th round back in April.

Weisfield, who is as busy as any U.S. judge in the sport and has worked dozens and dozens of undercard fights this year, also scored David Benavidez’s March decision win over Caleb Plant in Las Vegas. He tallied the fight 117 – 111 decisively for Benavidez.

Spence vs. Crawford is one of the most anticipated smaller weight fights of the last five years. And, now, we await whether Dock, Cheatham, Sutherland and Weisfeld will be any part of the drama or simply do their jobs correctly and mostly without being noticed?

More must-reads: