David Benavidez-David Morrell Jnr main and co-main officials finalized

The officials for the main event and co-main event in the David Benavidez vs. David Morrell Jnr card set for Saturday in Las Vegas have been finalized.

Thomas Taylor, of California, will be the third man in charge for the Benavidez-Morrell fight, which will take place at T-Mobile Arena. The three judges who will score the bout are Tim Cheatham and Patricia Morse Jarman, of Nevada, and Steve Weisfeld, of New Jersey.

The officials were initially recommended by Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Jeff Mullen, and were unanimously approved by the four commissioners who were in attendance Tuesday at the NSAC monthly commission meeting.

Saturday’s fight will be the third straight Benavidez fight that Taylor will referee. He was also the third man in the ring for Benavidez’s sixth-round stoppage of Demetrius Andrade in November of 2023 and his unanimous decision win last June over Oleksandr Gvozdyk – both of which took place in Las Vegas. Saturday marks the first time Taylor will officiate a Morrell fight.

The 12-round light heavyweight fight, which will headline a Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view card on Prime Video, will have major world title implications. The winner will become mandatory challenger for the WBC title, which will be among the belts at stake on February 22 when undisputed champion Artur Beterbiev meets Dmitry Bivol in a rematch in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Benavidez, 29-0 (24 KOs), is from Phoenix, while Morrell, 11-0 (9 KOs), is is from Santa Clara, Cuba, but now makes his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Also on the agenda were the officials for the rematch between Brandon Figueroa, 25-1-1 (19 KOs), and Stephen Fulton, 22-1 (8 KOs).

Harvey Dock, of New Jersey, was selected as the referee, while New York’s Max Deluca, Oklahoma’s David Sutherland and California’s Zachary Young will score the fight. Dock, a former Golden Gloves champion with a 1-0 pro record, has never refereed a fight for either Figueroa or Fulton.

The fight, which will be the first defense of Figueroa’s WBC featherweight title, will be a rematch of their close junior featherweight unification bout in 2021, which Fulton won by majority decision.

Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.