He moves side to side, or circles the two men he is assigned to oversee, watching for violations or irregularities, occasionally stepping in to disengage clinches.

His eyes are fixed on the nebulous demarcation line that separates two fighters, even as he shifts one way or the other, blending into what is trans- piring without distracting from the action. He is focused and moves quickly when a fighter catches the other with a barrage of punches and there is no response. He seems to know when a fighter is done long before anyone at ringside, in the corners or sometimes even the fighter himself. Immediate objections to his quick responses are often quickly amended.

He has been lauded countless times when his swift reactions have prevented an unresponsive fighter from taking unnecessary punishment, or, worse yet, incurring serious injury.

In July of this year, he stopped a fight in the sixth round of a consolidation match between the two unbeaten champions for the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization super lightweight titles after Jose Luis Ramirez overwhelmed Maurice Hooker, who had appreciative words afterward.

“Two fighters died this week and I didn’t want to be the third. The ref did the right thing because I was hurt,’’Hooker said.

Mark Nelson fought only one time himself, in an amateur match, but has risen to the very top of the boxing world as what is sometimes referred to in the sport as the “third man in the ring.’’

The end to the Ramirez-Hooker fight came suddenly and did not require a great deal of insight on Nelson’s part.“I just knew that if he took one more punch that he’d probably be leaving the ring on a stretcher,’’ he said.

He has a simple message that he delivers to fighters in the dressing room before the bout. “I promise I’ll be fair,’’ he tells them. “I don’t care who wins, but I care about you. I am here for you and your family. Safety comes first.’’

Nelson is rarely out of place in the ring, and blends into the action instead of standing out from it as some referees are prone to do. His ability to sense when a fighter is through is frequently praised by onlookers, participants and corner men as well as the officials watching his performance. “I’ve stopped fights where there have been complaints but then I was approached later and told I had done the right thing,’’ he said. “I’m thanked for stopping fights way more than criticized for it.’’

What seems like a sixth sense with him is simply an accumulation of knowledge and experience. “You see a guy with his mouth wide open and it tells you he is probably out of gas,’’ he said. “Or a guy loses a round, then another by a little more and then the next round even more. That’s when you think about stopping a fight, when a guy has no chance of winning.’’

Nelson is the most accomplished referee in Minnesota boxing history. No one has done what he’s done, been where he’s been or occupied the ring for as many world championship fights. He has been in the ring for ghts involving world champions Andre Berto, Terrence Crawford,
Amir Khan, Joe Calzaghe, Manny Pacquiao and others. He began refereeing amateur bouts in 1989, got his professional license in 1992 and rst international bout two years later.

When he shifted to professional boxing in 1992, he had already soaked up information from some of the best referees in the world after attending numerous conventions and seminars with his dad, Denny, also a Hall of Fame referee.

Some of the men he counts as his mentors -
Joe Cortez, Mills Lane and Richard Steele - were known throughout the boxing world as world class referees. “Here I was, an amateur referee, sitting
in on all these seminars listening to how these prominent referees handled the big fights,’’ Nelson recalled. “That made it a lot easier for me.’’

Yet, it was at ringside, as a youngster, watching his father work and hearing his words, that he learned the most, acquiring the foundation of a role he would later perform himself.

He has refereed some 95 title fights around the world and judged another half dozen. He has worked title fights in eighteen countries, in Germany alone on twenty-five occasions, in Japan another ten. England, Denmark, Italy. He’s a world traveler, having refereed more than 738 professional fights and judged another 200.

He referees for the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and the International Boxing Federation (IBF), and has worked fights on Showtime, HBO, ESPN, USA Tuesday Night Fights , CBS and FOX, as well as European Sports Network and multiple networks throughout the Orient.

He has risen to the point that he gives boxing seminars himself for the various organizations to which he belongs. “I tell referees that they have to be ready to stop a fight but that we have a motto,’’ he said. “You don’t want to stop a fight one punch too soon or one punch too late. Making the right decisions, knowing the rules and knowing when they apply is what separates the good referees from the great ones.’’

Despite Nelson’s long association with the sport, he himself had a short-lived boxing career. His father was an accomplished amateur boxer in the Golden Gloves but wasn’t compelled to see any of his sons box themselves. Mark gave it a try, fighting once.

“I was never the kind of athlete in any sport who could have risen to the point I have as a referee,’’ he said.

He has refereed bouts that included some of the very best in boxing, although he is still awaiting his first world title heavyweight bout.

Perhaps the most notable fight he has overseen, for sheer magnitude, was the welterweight title bout between Je Horn and Pacquiao in Brisbane, Australia. Nelson was selected from dozens of other available referees, as the third man in the ring, for the feature attraction on ESPN’s first mega card.

Some 63,000 people turned out to see Horn outpoint Pacquiao. “It was a huge fight,’’ Nelson added. “ESPN, Top Rank, Bob Arum was there. The huge crowd. It was just a humbling experience.’’

Naturally, the job does not come without certain risks. A referee, despite all caution, can sometimes get too close to the action. After all, it is a prize ght that he is overseeing.

Nelson once finished a bout and discovered that he had a fractured rib. On one occasion, he demonstrated that although he was not a professional fighter himself, he did, in fact, have a solid chin. During a fight between Hugo Centeno, Jr., from California and Polish boxer Maciej Sulecki, he stepped in to break the two boxers and was immediately hit on the chin with a roundhouse right hook from Centeno didn’t faze him.

Nelson has become one of the very best in his profession, and, for his ongoing, high level service in the sport, has also become a member of the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.