Meet Third Man In Ring For Tyson Fury-Dillian Whyte

In addition to the participants in the WBC heavyweight title showdown between champion Tyson Fury and challenger Dillian Whyte, the other key figure that will be in the ring coming up at Wembley Stadium is veteran British referee Mark Lyson.

And intriguingly, although Lyson has a vast amount of experience, this will be the first time he’s ever been part of a heavyweight championship title fight.

Upon closer look at Lyson’s career he has been a very distinguished British referee since 2009. Lyson does have plenty of world championship experience, including having worked the WBO junior lightweight ladies title fight last Saturday night in Manchester, England, won by Alycia Baumgardner by 10 round decision over Edith Matthysse.

Lyson also does have experience having worked with Dillian Whyte in one of his fights in the recent past. He was the referee in the August 2020, one punch KO by Russian Alexander Povetkin of Whyte at the Matchroom Boxing headquarters. Lyson waved the off the fight off immediately upon seeing Whyte unconscious on his back from the thunderous left uppercut in the fifth round.

The Liverpool native is not without recent controversy that came in a fight in March of 2021 when he erroneously injected himself into the lightweight matchup Maxi Hughes and Paul Hyland. Lyson jumped between Hughes having hurt Hyland and Hyland thought he was ruling him down. Then, Hyland turned his back walking two steps towards a corner, but Lyson subsequently waved Hughes back towards him, landing a sideways punch on Hyland who still had his back turned.

Hyland was subsequently counted out after being distracted by Lyson’s actions. Lyson’s involvement in the controversy was investigated, but he was ultimately cleared and allowed to resume working prominent fights.

Lyson was chosen by the British Boxing Board of control to be on a short list of referee candidates for Fury-Whyte and the World Boxing Council which is sanctioning the bout selected him to be the third man in.

It’s also interesting to note the promoter Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions and the champion Fury insisted that no British judges the allowed to score the fight Saturday night in the event that it ends up as a 12-round decision. This is largely due to erroneous and erratic scoring that is going on in some recent prominent fights, including Scotland’s Josh Taylor retaining his Undisputed 140 lb. title when many believe the Challenger Jack Catterall of England had won the bout.

The judges for the Fury Whyte bout will be: Italian Guido Cavalleri, Canada’s Robert Tapper and Juan Carlos Pelayo from Mexico.

Now, as always is the case for Lyson (and the judges) he hopes that few people know much about him or remember anything that he does tonight. That’s, because notoriety is only usually reserved for something that he’s done wrong.