Ron Lipton (born August 8, 1946) is an American boxing referee who has officiated in world title bouts in the United States, Ireland and Italy, and on HBO pay-per-view. He has refereed fights involving

Evander Holyfield Evander Holyfield (born October 19, 1962) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and is the on ...

Ray Mercer Raymond Anthony Mercer (born April 4, 1961) is an American former professional boxer, kickboxer, and mixed martial artist who competed from 1989 to 2009. Best known for his boxing career, Mercer won a heavyweight gold medal at the 1988 Summer ...

Roy Jones Jr. Roy Levesta Jones Jr. (born January 16, 1969) is an American former professional boxer who holds dual American and Russian citizenship. He competed in boxing from 1989 to 2018, and held multiple world championships in four weight classes, inc ...

Oscar De La Hoya Oscar De La Hoya ( , ; born on February 4, 1973) is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 world titles in six weight classes, including the lineal championshi ...

David Tua Faumuina To'aletai Mafaufau David Tua (born 21 November 1972), best known as David Tua, is a Samoan-New Zealand former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2013. A highly ranked heavyweight contender for most of his career, Tua was kno ...

Junior Jones Junior Jones (born December 20, 1970) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2002. He held world championships in two weight classes, including the World Boxing Association (WBA) bantamweight title from 1993 to 1994 an ...

Chris Eubank Christopher Livingstone Eubank (born 8 August 1966) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 1998. He held the WBO middleweight and super-middleweight titles between 1990 and 1995, and is ranked by BoxRec as the thir ...

Donovan Ruddock Donovan "Razor" Ruddock (born December 21, 1963) is a Jamaican-born Canadian former professional boxer who competed from 1982 to 2001 and in 2015. He is known for his two fights against Mike Tyson in 1991, a fight against Lennox Lewis in 1992, a ...

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and

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. In May 2013, Lipton refereed the vacant

Women's International Boxing Federation The Women's International Boxing Federation (WIBF) is one of the more recognized world championship fight sanctioning organizations in women's boxing. Founded in March 1989, it is based in Miami, Florida, and presided over by Barbara Buttrick. The ...

World

Super featherweight Super featherweight, also known as junior lightweight, is a boxing weight classes, weight division in professional boxing, contested between and . The super featherweight division was established by the New York Walker Law in 1920, although firs ...

contest between

Ronica Jeffrey Ronica Jeffrey (born January 24, 1983, Brooklyn, New York) is the International Women's Boxing Federation World Super Featherweight champion. Her professional boxing record is 17-1-1. Jeffrey is managed by Brian Cohen. World Championship Bout ...

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and former

World Boxing Council The World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation ...

Super Featherweight champion Olivia Gerula of

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, Manitoba, Canada. The winner, Ronica Jeffrey, emerged as the

BoxRec BoxRec or boxrec.com is a website dedicated to holding updated records of professional and amateur boxers, both male and female. It also maintains a MediaWiki-based encyclopaedia of boxing. The objective of the site is to document every profess ...

number three ranked female featherweight in the world. In 2014, he was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame as a "fighter, referee and boxing historian." In 2015, he was awarded the

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Renaissance Boxing Award. In September 2019, Lipton was inducted into the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame. In June 2022, Lipton's indecision in stopping the match between Josue Vargas and Dakota Linger at the

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

was criticised in the media. In the second round, Vargas was struck by a heavy overhand right that rocked him off his feet. Lipton ruled the fall to be only a slip and allowed the match to continue. Linger forced wobbly and stumbling Vargas back onto the floor before

New York State Athletic Commission The New York State Athletic Commission or NYSAC, also known as the New York Athletic Commission, is a division of the New York State Department of State which regulates all contests and exhibitions of unarmed combat within the state of New York, ...

inspectors and ringside doctors climbed onto the ring apron and stopped the fight. Boxer

Shakur Stevenson Ash-Shakur Stevenson (born June 28, 1997) is an American professional boxer. He is a former world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBO featherweight title from 2019 to 2020, the WBO super featherweight title from 2021 to 2022, and ...

also criticised the decision to allow the match to continue for as long as it did.

Personal life

Ron Lipton's son Brett Lipton was presented honours as a Deputy Sherriff in January 2024 by

Dutchess County Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later organ ...

sheriff Kirk Imperati.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lipton, Ron American boxing referees Living people 1946 births