by David P. Greisman

It is poetic yet unfortunate that Pat Russell’s career will end in the same manner as his final fight working as a boxing referee — slightly earlier than scheduled and distracting from much of what came beforehand.

Russell had spent more than three decades as a referee and judge. Nearly all of his gigs came in California, though occasionally he traveled internationally to preside in the ring or score from ringside. He was now 67 years old and had said he would retire at the end of this year.

This past Saturday, he was assigned to the main event at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, working the headline bout on HBO between welterweights Timothy Bradley and Jessie Vargas. For 11 rounds, two minutes and 50 seconds, Russell was largely inconsequential, there when necessary, not too much nor too little for what was otherwise a clean and competitive bout.

That is precisely what referees seek to be: the third man in the ring not having an effect on the action provided by and attention given to the other two, the combatants. He does not want to be noticed except when needed. He is there to officiate, though not officiously.

But then Russell made a mistake — likely an honest one, though still a big one. And while it was nowhere near the worst performance by a referee this past Saturday (more on that later), it is the one that is receiving the most debate and discussion among boxing fans outside of parts of Asia.

That’s because more people in the other areas of the world saw Bradley-Vargas than did the flyweight fight between Thai titleholder Amnat Ruenroeng and Filipino challenger Johnriel Casimero. Referee Larry Doggett did a terrible job from bell to bell, allowing Ruenroeng to foul regularly and without penalty until far too late in the fight.

Doggett’s woeful work contrasts with Russell’s. What Doggett allowed to happen was momentous; it very likely had a clear effect on the fight. Russell’s momentary mistake, however, could only lead to speculation as to whether the final result would’ve been any different than the eventual Bradley decision victory.

It’s possible, but highly doubtful.

Bradley was comfortably ahead on the scorecards going into the 12th round. With about 20 seconds left, Bradley sent a jab upstairs, brought his left hand back low and then kept it there as he began to throw a right hand. Vargas was already ducking forward and turning his power into a hard overhand right hand that caught Bradley flush and sent him staggering backward. Bradley retreated along the ropes, shuffling along and attempting to buy space and time to clear his head and regain his legs.

Vargas pursued with a left hook to the head that caught Bradley’s glove, and another that was blocked just the same. They soon tied up near the red corner, Bradley grabbing Vargas, and the sound of the 10-second warning sticks clapping could be heard from ringside.

Russell moved in to pull Vargas off Bradley. Vargas threw three body shots and Russell could be heard yelling. “No, no, no,” he said, waving his hands in front of Vargas’s face. “Fight’s over.”

Vargas, believing that Russell had stopped the bout, turned and raised his gloves, running across the ring and climbing the ropes to celebrate what he thought was a last-seconds stoppage victory.

Except it wasn’t.

“Very loud in that 12th round, and I thought I heard the bell. So the fight was over when the bell went off,” Russell told HBO’s Max Kellerman in a post-fight interview. “It sounded like the bell to me. You don’t always hear the 10-second warning. You’d like to. But what I thought I heard was the bell. I made the call that I made based upon what I heard. That’s all I can say.”

The fight went to the scorecards. Bradley won a unanimous decision by scores of 115-112, 116-112 and 117-111. The smallest margin had Bradley winning eight rounds and Vargas four with an additional point docked from Bradley due to how badly he was hurt in the 12th, while the widest margin had Bradley taking nine rounds and Vargas three.

Vargas felt the fight never would’ve gone to the judges had he been allowed to fight for those final 10 seconds — as in, had he not believed that Russell had already awarded him the win.

“He [Bradley] was still very wobbly,” Vargas told Kellerman. “All I needed was one shot, and that’s what I was looking for. Pat Russell came in and it was just an honest mistake on his part. I think we all acknowledge the fact that it was a mistake, but those 10 seconds cost me the fight.”

Bradley acknowledged being hurt, though he argued he was wholly capable of surviving until the final bell.

“I was good enough. I could’ve maintained. I grabbed a hold to him towards the end of the fight. I would’ve squeezed him so tight like his mama was hugging him,” Bradley said. “I would’ve finished. I ain’t gonna lie. There was 10 seconds left. Even if the ref would’ve let him go some more, I would’ve grabbed a hold to him again. I’m an experienced fighter, man. I know what I’m doing in there.”

Bradley mentioned as evidence of this that he previously had “survived Provodnikov,” referencing the 12-round war that Bradley won over Ruslan Provodnikov back in 2013, a brutal battle in which Bradley likely was concussed early and still fought on.

It’s hard to blame Vargas for thinking he was on the verge of victory, believing as he had just landed one big shot that another would soon come. Yet the only reason he was able to throw those three body shots was because Russell had pulled him away from Bradley’s clinch. By the time they would’ve engaged again, there may have been perhaps eight seconds left. Vargas may have been able to catch Bradley in the waning moments, or Bradley could’ve moved, or blocked the shots, or clinched again, or withstood those punches.

So much can happen in so short a time, and yet it’s logical to conclude that the round and the fight were closer to being done than Bradley was. It’s heartbreaking for Vargas, who suffered his first pro loss, though he has also been the beneficiary of a few controversial decisions. This chaotic and confusing ending may actually prove to be better for his career than had it not happened.

There could be a rematch. Bradley accepted the idea of one, and the fighters share a promoter in Top Rank. Their bout was for an interim title belt; the sanctioning body could mandate that they face each other again. And if the network money isn’t there for an immediate sequel, then Bradley and Vargas could end up in separate interim bouts before meeting again.

Vargas fought well in defeat against a versatile and experienced former two-division titleholder who has been in the ring with Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Devon Alexander and Lamont Peterson, among others. He will be back.

He likely won’t be able to get the decision overturned, however.

There are no rules in the Association of Boxing Commission regulations or California statutes detailing what happens when a referee ends a fight too early. The final 10 seconds on the ringside clock ticked down during the confusion until the final bell rang to officially signify the bout’s conclusion.

The ABC rules say the referee is the “sole arbiter” when it comes to interpreting rules and situations. Athletic commissions have still been able to hear protests and appeals and have changed results before.

California’s statutes declare that “a decision rendered at the termination of any boxing contest is final and shall not be changed” except for a limited number of scenarios, including collusion, mathematical errors, the use of banned substances, or “a violation of the laws or rules and regulations governing boxing which affected the result of any contest.”

It would be difficult to prove that Russell’s mistake affected the result. It’s not anywhere near as clear as past results that have been changed when, say, an accidental injury that ended a fight was overturned from a technical knockout into a no contest.

Russell was said to have announced his retirement shortly after the bout, a decision that may have been made out of a mixture of emotion and embarrassment, a resignation that came from, well, resignation, from Russell perhaps believing that he isn’t able to perform to proper standards anymore. It’s not how Russell envisioned his career ending, though it’s somewhat akin to a boxer getting knocked out and then deciding to hang up his gloves.

It’s time, though, given that this is not the first time Russell has done this.

He was also the referee for last year’s bout between the aforementioned Amnat Ruenroeng and McWilliams Arroyo. Jake Donovan of BoxingScene.com wrote this about a sequence following a sixth-round knockdown Arroyo scored on Ruenroeng:

“Ruenroeng barely beat the count and looked spent, but caught a break. Aged referee Pat Russell mistook the five-second warning clicker as the bell, thus ending the round early, the first of at least four times in which he would make such an error.”

The executive director of California’s athletic commission, Andy Foster, said the day after Bradley-Vargas that the commission may change its 10-second warning from a wood clapper to an air horn for fights held in outdoor venues, according to Steve Carp of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Russell’s role in Bradley-Vargas was still nowhere near as bad as the negligence Larry Doggett demonstrated while working Ruenroeng-Casimero and the head-shaking response afterward of the sanctioning body whose title was on the line.

Ruenroeng picked up a vacant title in early 2014 and had defended it successfully three times since then. He’d been notably dirty before, yet the Casimero bout was a new low.

Casimero was a former 108-pound titleholder who’d moved up to flyweight late last year. This was his first title shot in his new division. He never stood a chance. He could barely remain standing. And that wasn’t because of punches that were landing.

Rather, Ruenroeng took to tackling and/or throwing Casimero to the canvas. In the opening seconds, Ruenroeng grabbed onto Casimero, brought him to the ropes, spun him and tripped him. There were headlocks and holds and shoves, all bringing the first warning from Doggett two minutes in. Ruenroeng nevertheless continued with the shoving and holding. Sometimes he would hold Casimero’s head down and wrap his arm around it. Other times he would step to the side and lace his arm and elbow around Casimero’s neck.

And on occasion he would bring Casimero to the ropes, laying his body on his opponent and keeping them both there while Doggett allowed it, sometimes telling them to fight out despite Ruenroeng’s intentional and extended negating of any action, or calling for a break without successfully forcing the fighters apart.

Meanwhile, Ruenroeng scored a knockdown in the second round. Casimero appeared to score a knockdown of his own off a counter in the third, though it went uncalled.

The fouls continued to add up, literal throwdowns preventing a figurative one from breaking out. There was little in the way of actual offense from Ruenroeng, and the fact that he was able to do this without fear of penalty meant that Casimero was rarely able to get his own offense going.

In the seventh round, Casimero was tripped up as Ruenroeng began to throw shots. Doggett called it a knockdown. Soon in the same round, Ruenroeng got away with holding onto Casimero for 32 seconds, one-sixth of the round spent in that single clinch. Doggett’s warnings were too rare and weren’t escalating into threats of points being taken and, ultimately, disqualification. Only when there were 22 seconds left in the 11th round was a point finally taken from Ruenroeng.

It made the most frustrating of Wladimir Klitschko’s fights look relatively entertaining. It made the foulest of Bernard Hopkins’ fights look relatively clean.

Ruenroeng got the decision, and Casimero and his team were understandably upset both during and after the bout.

It got far less attention than Saturday’s other action and controversy. Part of that is because Ruenroeng-Casimero took place halfway across the world in Thailand, found live only in an online stream airing at a very early hour in the United States and in the early afternoon in Europe. It was a flyweight fight involving names that don’t have much recognition except among the most hardcore followers of the sport.

It was pitiful, and those involved need to be held responsible for righting the wrongs. Fighters have been allowed to get away with holding and fouling before, but Ruenroeng was perhaps the most blatantly, egregiously and frequently dirty. There is no excuse for a boxer to attempt such behavior, and there is no excuse for a referee to allow such behavior for such an extended period of time.

Fortunately in this digital era, there were boxing writers and fans who watched the bout as it happened and others who have been able to catch it since. Phil D. Jay of World Boxing News tweeted Sunday morning that he had contacted the International Boxing Federation about Ruengroeng-Casimero.

“IBF told me they ‘were not aware of any problems concerning referee Larry Doggett,’ ” Jay wrote.

BoxRec shows Doggett as having been a referee for only 16 bouts, though there’s a possibility that its records are incomplete. What the website does have on file are two fights in 1991, three fights in 1996, one fight apiece in 1997 and 2001, five fights in 2010, one fight apiece in 2011 and 2012, a fight last year and now this one. The Virginia-based official also has six bouts listed as a judge.

It’s likely he’s done more, given how doubtful it is that someone would be allowed to judge a title fight in his first time scoring a pro bout or would have refereed so many IBF title bouts over the years with such a thin track record.

His past experience or inexperience, frankly, shouldn’t even matter at this point. His work in Ruenroeng-Casimero speaks for itself.

Doggett failed to perform his duties as a referee on Saturday. The IBF needs to fulfill its responsibility to hold him accountable, provide Casimero with another opportunity and ensure that future Ruenroeng bouts are properly officiated.

And we need to make certain that the IBF does so.

The 10 Count will return soon.

“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com