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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=319782" target="_blank">
Nick Lembo: Unified Amateur Rules will aid judging
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<strong class="ArticleSource">[mmajunkie.com]</strong>
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<p>At the Association of Boxing Commission (ABC) annual meeting in July, New Jersey State Athletic Control Board chief counsel Nick Lembo will provide guidelines for uniform amateur-MMA regulation across all jurisdictions. Among the possible benefits of the proposal is the further vetting of judges</p>
Lembi is the chairman of the ABC's MMA rules committee, and as well also chairman of the officials' training and development committee.
"If you first get a look at these judges in amateur fights and how they're progressing, that will improve the judging," Lembo told MMAjunkie.com.
"In a lot of jurisdictions, amateur MMA is a) not regulated at all by the commission, or b) is regulated by the commission in the sense of transferring full authority and control to a chosen sanctioning organization.""The commissions are not overseeing the judging or getting a handle on bringing judges up through the ranks."
"We're trying to raise awareness. A lot of these commissions are new and have just gotten into MMA in the last couple of years."
In New Jersey, prospective judges are required to undergo a rigorous training program in which they shadow inspectors and judges at both the amateur and professional levels. At the professional level, they submit scorecards that are not counted but are monitored by the NJSAC. They also rotate between experienced judges to get a hands-on feeling for the process.
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