Local paralegal is set to judge card in China
Albuquerque’s Lopez has 13 years of professional experience
As a paralegal, Albuquerque’s Esther Lopez gathers information and prepares documents that eventually may wind up in front of a judge.
On many weekend nights, minus the robe and the gavel, she becomes a judge herself.
Lopez, a boxing judge with 13 years of experience in the professional ranks, soon will embark on the most exciting assignment of her career: a trip to Kunming, China, for a May 8 card that features several World Boxing Council title fights at various levels.
She leaves Tuesday, routed to Kunming — a city of some 5 million residents in southern China — through Los Angeles and Shanghai.
She’s had a long journey in boxing already. Though she also works MMA events, it was the ring and not the cage that first captured her fancy.
Her love affair with the sport began with her father, a devoted fan.
“Just watching as a kid on CBS, Channel 13, every Saturday,” she said. “My dad and I would watch boxing, and it just became a passion.”
Lopez began her judging career in the amateur ranks.
“The amateurs were an amazing, amazing thing,” she said. “I loved the kids.”
She discovered, though, that parents and coaches loved the kids, as well — too much so, she felt, to be in any way objective about the scores she and the other judges handed down. Emotions often ran high.
“You’re donating all your time and all your efforts, and, you know, parents are parents,” she said. “Parents are protective, coaches are protective, and it becomes a little bit more difficult to judge for the kids. So, it was time to move on.”
Lopez worked her first professional card in 2002. She has judged nearly 200 bouts since then, mostly in New Mexico but also in Arizona.
Lopez’s relationship with the WBC began with membership in the North American Boxing Federation, a WBC subsidiary. Last year in Mon- treal, she judged NABF and WBC International Silver title fights.
Though neither of those bouts went the distance, her scorecards to the point of the stoppages were compared to those of the other judges.
“They thought my scores were good enough, and they’re giving me a shot (at the Kunming card),” she said. “I’m really proud of that, I have to say. I’ve worked long and hard, and now’s my time, I guess.”
The key to being a successful and respected boxing judge, Lopez said, can be summed up in two words: focus and fairness.
While watching boxing on TV with her dad, she said, she gravitated more to punchers like George Foreman and Joe Frazier and less so to boxers and movers like Muhammad Ali. But as a judge, personal preference has no place.
“You’re going to look for what’s effective,” she said. “... It’s what’s effective as the fight progresses, and that can change from round to round, obviously.”
Just as obvious, but nonetheless difficult, is the need for complete concentration during each round. Boring fight, exciting fight, it’s all the same for a judge.
If the mind wanders for an instant, she said, “You kind of have to regroup. You have to pull yourself away, and you have to say, ‘OK, these are the two people in this ring, men or women, and they worked really hard.’ So, you want to be as fair as possible, and ... it’s all about focus.”
Just as boxers have role models — fighters they admire — there are judges whom Lopez holds in high regard.
One is Julie Lederman. The daughter of Harold Lederman, HBO’s judge in residence, she has worked dozens of world title fights.
Another is Adelaide Byrd, a Las Vegas, Nev., resident who has been judging professionally since 1997.
“But, really,” Lopez said, “the most inspiration I’ve had is from (Las Cruces’) Levi Martinez. His scores are just impeccable.”
If Lopez needs advice on how to get comfortable scoring a fight in a foreign country, she need look no further than her fellow New Mexican. In the past six months, Martinez has judged fights in Colombia, Macao, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico.
Wherever a bout is held, Lopez said, the process must be the same.
“One of the things they teach us when we go for our training is, you have a scale,” she said. “Both of the fighters are in the center of the scale (at the beginning of a round).”
As the round progresses, that mental scale may swing to the fighter in the red corner, then back to the fighter in the blue corner — and back again. The important thing, Lopez said, is that the first minute of a round is as valued as the last minute.
Whether ringside or in a court of law, it’s all about the scale of justice.