Hall of Fame boxing referee Joe Cortez is confident that Conor McGregor will keep the action clean on Aug. 26.
McGregor will step inside the boxing ring for the first time in his fighting career against Floyd Mayweather. The bout takes place inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’ll air live on Showtime pay-per-view.
Cortez was brought in to McGregor’s camp to get him familiar with boxing rules. He helped officiate McGregor’s sparring sessions with Paulie Malignaggi and other partners. The man most known for being, “fair but firm” is confident that McGregor will play by the rules.
He spoke to The Mac Life recently and talked about working with McGregor throughout his camp (via MMAFighting.com):
“[Conor] knows the kind of referee that I’ve been throughout the years. I’ve refereed close to 200 world championship fights, so I think he pays a lot more attention and I speak to him with a lot more details in what can go wrong if he doesn’t comply by the rules. So I think he’s very pleased, just as I am. Like I said, every session he gets better, he wants to learn more, he keeps asking me questions, and I tell him exactly what’s gotta be done.
“I think everything is gonna be just fine come Saturday night.”
