NEW YORK, USA (AFP) — Boxing referee Arthur Mercante, the third man in the ring for the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight and more than 100 other world title bouts, died Saturday at the age of 90.

Edward Brophy, executive director of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, said Mercante died at his home.

Flags at the Hall of Fame were flying at half-mast Saturday. Ten-bell salutes were planned before Andre Berto’s welterweight title defence against Carlos Quintana in Sunrise, Florida, and at a fight card in Las Vegas.

Mercante refereed 145 world title fights in his career, the most famous on March 8, 1971, when Joe Frazier defeated Muhammad Ali in a bout dubbed “The Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden.

Ali and Frazier were both unbeaten when they met in an event that transcended boxing.

Mercante, whose full-time job at the time was working for Schaefer Brewing Company, received a call from the New York State Athletic Commission hours before the fight.

He and two other referees were called to the Garden, where one would be chosen to officiate, the last-minute decision designed to prevent bookmakers or other interested parties from being able to influence the referee.

“Of course I was dying to get the assignment,” Mercante wrote in his autobiography. “The minutes, then the hours, ticked away interminably.”

“He was the third man in the most important fight in the last 50 years, and he reveled in the fact that he was. But he had so many other experiences that it wasn’t singular,” said boxing historian Bert Sugar, who considered Mercante a close friend.

Frazier won by unanimous decision, then lost to Ali in two more classic fights that Mercante did not work.

Mercante also refereed the 1973 title fight between Frazier and George Foreman, ending it in the second round after Foreman had dropped the champion six times.

Mercante’s son, Arthur Mercante jnr, followed in his father’s footsteps in becoming a referee.