{"id":2003,"date":"2010-04-10T20:51:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T00:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ringsidereport.com\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2010-04-10T20:51:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T00:51:58","slug":"rsr-says-goodbye-to-arthur-mercante-sr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=2003","title":{"rendered":"RSR Says Goodbye to Arthur Mercante SR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Geno McGahee<\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 8, 1971, the \u201cFight of the Century\u201d would take place between the Heavyweight Champion \u201cSmokin\u2019\u201d Joe Frazier and the returning ex-champ, Muhammad Ali.\u00a0 Ali was banned from the sport and stripped of the title when he refused induction into the military.\u00a0 In his absence, Frazier won the title and built up an impressive record of 26-0, 23 KO\u2019s.\u00a0 The fight was a promoter\u2019s dream.\u00a0 Ali was famous to some, infamous to others, and the people would watch, either to watch him fulfill a destiny or to finally be shut up.\u00a0 Frazier was the working man\u2019s fighter, a tough guy that did everything the hard way.\u00a0 The title was in question, the location was New York City, and the fight proved to be the biggest of all time up to that date.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The referee for the contest was Arthur Mercante, SR., a man that had been the third man in the ring since 1954, and much like Ali and Frazier are forever linked together, so too is he.\u00a0 The fight was historical and was as important as a sporting event could be.\u00a0 Mercante, SR., as always, did a flawless job, ensuring that the end result would not be marred by controversy.\u00a0 Frazier would walk away with a decision win after fifteen rounds and the two would go on to fight two more times and have even squabbled well into their golden years, a never ending feud.<\/p>\n

Mercante, SR., would go on to referee 120 world title fights, retiring from the sport in 2001 at 81 years of age.\u00a0 In 1988, he would be awarded the James J. Walker Memorial Award and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.\u00a0 He was the premiere referee of his time, stood out when the referee would typically be forgotten.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sad news that the legendary referee had passed away at the age of 90 came in, dying in his home.\u00a0 He lived a long and full life, and his memory within the boxing community as well as those that grew up in the late sixties and early seventies, when the nation was changing and boxing was changing with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He lives on through his family and especially so through his son Arthur Mercante, JR., a good referee in his own right.\u00a0 Mercante, SR., will be remembered for his contributions to pugilism, his service to his country in the Navy in World War II, and by his loving family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RSR says goodbye to Arthur Mercante, SR., a man I once had the pleasure to speak to and was very courteous and kind, eager to speak to anyone at any time.\u00a0 He will be missed. We at RSR ring the bell for the honorary brother in boxing that we lost…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Geno McGahee On March 8, 1971, the \u201cFight of the Century\u201d would take place between the Heavyweight Champion \u201cSmokin\u2019\u201d Joe Frazier and the returning ex-champ, Muhammad Ali.\u00a0 Ali was banned from the sport and stripped of the title when he refused induction into the military.\u00a0 In his absence, Frazier won the title and built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65,105,388,469,521,671],"class_list":["post-2003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-arthur-mercante","tag-boxing","tag-joe-frazier","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-muhummad-ali","tag-sr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}