Major rule exceptions to be considered for Mayweather-McGregor

The Nevada State Athletic Commission are to discuss two major exceptions in the rules for the Floyd Mayweather v Conor McGregor super fight later this month.

The Dubliner makes his debut against the retired five-weight boxing champ at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday August 26th.

The NSAC will sanction the fight, and indeed received criticism from some quarters for choosing to do so, and the commission’s chief Bob Bennett has confirmed that they will consider altering their established rules for the twelve-round light middleweight fight.

The alterations under discussion are with regards to the judging of the fights and the gloves that will be used.

In terms of judging, Team McGregor have requested for one of the three scoring judges at ringside to be from outside the United States. Usually for fights in Nevada, all three judges will be American.

NSAC chief Bob Bennett told Sky Sports that “the McGregor camp has requested an international judge. We will see if we think that’s fair, and we will take it into consideration.”

“We try to be flexible and adaptable. We’re customer service orientated.”

With the gloves issue Bennett has, somewhat surprisingly, said that the NSAC will consider requests from both fighters for 8oz gloves to be used.

As the bout has been made at light middleweight, NSAC rules dictate that 10oz, and therefore comparatively less destructive, gloves must be used.

Mayweather would request for a switch to 8oz gloves, but the was seemingly dismissed by Bennett who stated earlier this month that “these regulations are in place for the health and safety of the athletes, which is of the utmost importance to the commission. “Our regulations already outline the appropriate glove size according to contracted weight of a fight.”

Now however there looks to have bee a reconsideration, with the NSAC chief outlining “our regulations require 10oz gloves. But I won’t say that there’s no negotiations.”

“The promoters have a legal opportunity to submit a waiver, then appear before our commission to articulate why they think we should make an exception to our regulations.

“This is an anomaly. But the fact that we’ve never received a request does not negate the fact that [Mayweather and McGregor] have the opportunity [to submit their own request].”