McGregor bringing in Joe Cortez
McGregor's group contacted Cortez a week ago to conduct eight and twelve round fight simulations - where Cortez reads the rules and initial warnings, basically recreating a scenario similar to professional boxing match.
"I'm working with McGregor as an unified boxing advisor. My job is to teach him not to commit any mistakes during his fight against Mayweather Jr," Cortez explained exclusively to Carlos Narvaez.
"They (McGregor's group) were looking for a referee with a broad knowledge of the rules and that's where my name came from. I honestly do not know how, but for me it's an honor. I know they had several names on the table, but they finally selected me and above everyone to be involved in some way for this event that possibly is one of the biggest of the year."
Cortez, a native of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, and a resident of Las Vegas, had worked in 986 professional bouts and 176 of them were world title fights. He entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011 along with great figures such as former champions Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Mike Tyson.
Cortez will work for six weeks with McGregor and his team.
"For Puerto Rico and for me this opportunity is worth a lot. This will be a fight between a boxer and a mixed martial arts specialist. As I said, my role will be to prepare McGregor so that he does not commit any breach of the rules on the day of the fight. It's an opportunity to recreate fights and their rules. He is a fighter who is learning very fast and has previous experience in fights and is moving quite well. The only thing I can say is that it will be an interesting fight," Cortez said.
