Referee Thomas Taylor to handle Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed fight

Referee Thomas Taylor, from Newport Beach, California, will handle the light-heavyweight championship superfight between the unified champion Artur Beterbiev and the WBA beltholder Dmitry Bivol on October 12 at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Taylor recently officiated Erislandy Lara’s victory over Danny Garcia in Las Vegas, and Andy Ruiz’s draw with Jarrell Miller on the Riyadh Season bill at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.

In July, he oversaw Junto Nakatani’s one-round win over Vincent Astrolabio in Tokyo, and in the light-heavyweight division he was the third man for David Benavidez’s fight with Oleksandr Gvozdyk in Vegas in June.

Taylor will be joined by Glenn Feldman of the USA, Spain’s Manuel Oliver Palomo and Pawel Kardyni of Poland as the scoring officials outside the ropes.

Palomo scored Oleksandr Usyk’s big win in May in Riyadh over Tyson Fury, 115-112 in favor of Usyk, and Kardyni recently was an unused judge in Naoya Inoue’s victory over TJ Doheny.

Kardyni was also a judge for Bivol’s previous fight in Riyadh – his victory over Malik Zinad – and on that same night scored Nick Ball a two-point winner over Raymond Ford in a close contest. 

The officials for the big British heavyweight title rematch between the champion Fabio Wardley and Frazer Clarke are the referee Victor Loughlin, and ringside judges Mark Bates, John Latham and Steve Gray.

Wardley and Clarke fought to a draw over 12 rounds in London.