Sec. 211.32. Referee's powers and duties

The referee shall exercise immediate authority, direction and control over contests and exhibitions to which he or she has been appointed. Before the start of each contest or exhibition under his or her direction, the referee shall ascertain the identity of the chief seconds of the respective participants and shall hold such chief seconds responsible for their own conduct and for the conduct of their respective assistant seconds in all matters pertinent to the contest or exhibition; the referee shall give such instructions to the participants and their seconds in the dressing room as he or she shall deem appropriate; the referee shall have and exercise in his or her discretion, the authority to remove or cause to be removed from the ring and or the vicinity thereof any person who interferes or attempts to interfere with the conduct of the contest or exhibition; before the start of each such contest or exhibition and from time to time, as he or she shall see fit, during the course thereof, he or she shall check the participants' gloves, equipment, and persons to assure that no unsafe or improper condition or conditions shall be permitted to exist; he or she shall observe carefully and continually the physical condition of the participants and shall have full and final responsibility, either at his or her own discretion or upon recommendation from the attending ringside physician for the immediate halting of any contest or exhibition wherein, for any reason, the safety of a participant would be jeopardized by continuance. The referee shall have exclusive authority in the event of injury to a participant, to interrupt the progress of a round by directing the timekeeper to stop the clock and calling the ringside physician into the ring to examine and advise upon the condition of the injured participant. If it shall be decided by the referee upon advice of the physician that such participant is fit to continue, the referee shall direct the timekeeper to start the clock and the round shall be resumed from the point of interruption, provided, however, that no such interruption of a round shall be ordered when the condition of the distressed party is such as would be materially remedied by an unscheduled rest period, except where the injury involved shall have resulted from a foul action by the opposing participant, when the referee, upon advice of the attending physician, shall order such reasonable rest period as shall be appropriate. The referee shall enforce the rules of boxing, as set forth by the commission, as well as those rules generally recognized in the sport under the traditional title of the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, as modified to current date by usage and written authority; the referee shall be authorized, in the event of foul tactics by a participant, to take away a point or points from the score of such participant at the end of the round in which such foul tactics shall have occurred, and when the referee has taken such action, he or she shall inform the judges and the chief seconds of the participants of the ruling prior to the start of the next round; the referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a contest or exhibition at any stage because of a major foul being committed by either participant and to award the decision, under the circumstances, to the fouled participant; the referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a contest or exhibition at any stage if he or she considers that one or both participants are failing to perform according to due standards of effort, ability or conduct, and in such event may disqualify one or both participants and if only one participant is disqualified the referee may award the contest or exhibition to the other by technical knockout; the referee shall have the exclusive authority to stop a contest or exhibition at any stage on the grounds that it is too one-sided. In such event, he or she may award the contest or exhibition to the superior participant as a technical knockout; the referee shall have the exclusive authority to decide whether or not a boxer is knocked down during the course of a round and shall indicate such decision to the timekeeper or alternate referee whose count shall be accordingly continued or discontinued, and, if the count is to be continued, the referee shall pick it up orally and by gesture after first assuring that the opponent of the fallen participant shall have retreated to the most distant neutral corner of the ring; at the conclusion of each contest or exhibition under his or her direction, the referee shall confirm to the announcer and to the commission, the official result and whether it shall have been by decision on points, by knockout, by technical knockout, or by disqualification.