Boxing Referee - Joe Cortez

Cortez moved to Puerto Rico during his childhood. Living there, he became fluent in Spanish. Cortez had a good amateur boxing career, winning various Golden Gloves tournaments from 1960 to 1962. In 1963, at the minimum age of eighteen, he jumped into the professional boxing ranks. Cortez had a record of eighteen wins and one defeat as a professional boxer. Unable to secure a world title shot, however, he retired from boxing after only nineteen professional fights. Beginning in the early 1970s, Cortez started working as a referee. During the 1980s, he took on the responsibility to referee some important, but not big, fights. As eminent referees Richard Steele and Mills Lane retired at the dawn of the 21st century, Cortez became one of Nevada and New York's preferred boxing referees for world title fights. He has refereed over 170 world title bouts, among which figure the first Oscar de la Hoya-Julio César Chávez meeting, and the match that saw 45-year-old George Foreman become the oldest World Heavyweight Champion in history. Asked by Telemundo personnel to give a prediction about the first de la Hoya-Chávez meeting prior to the fight taking place, he simply answered "I can't make any predictions", as referees are not allowed to do that before a fight (doing so might indicate favoritism towards one of the combatants). Cortez still referees major boxing events, and his catchphrase during pre-fight instructions, "(I am) fair but firm!" (also said as "I'm fair but I'm firm!") is now a copyrighted trademark. Cortez also gives children boxing instructions and has a website "fairbutfirm" that he teaches on how to become a referee.The first and only school for referees. He also appears in the film Rocky Balboa as the referee in the exhibition bout between Balboa and the fictional champion Mason "The Line" Dixon played by the professional boxer Antonio Tarver. He is best described by John Chavez of Boxing Confidential as "a long-time, over-the-hill, ten years past his prime, blunder-filled referee"