The boxing world will long remember Mills Lane as the referee in the infamous “Bite Fight” heavyweight championship between Evander Holyfield and a downright cannibalistic Mike Tyson.

Lane refereed more than 100 title fights in what many boxing fans would be surprised to learn was his side job. The intensity he took into the ring carried over into a long career as a prosecutor, district attorney, and Washoe County District Judge.

In a long life that ended Dec. 6 in Reno at age 85, Lane’s no-nonsense pugnacity won him a level of celebrity status rarely experienced by the third man in the ring. After all, how many refs do you know who had their own TV show, or wound up in front of the camera on fight night doing color commentary with the same staccato patter he used in the ring and courtroom?

Mills Lane was authentic and enthusiastic, but never forgot the business at hand. Long before he became famous for growling “Let’s get it on” at the start of a fight, he was in the ring during a particularly bruising bout that saw hometown heavyweight Gary Bates getting battered. Bates was terribly game, but on that night, he was on the canvas repeatedly. 

After yet another knockdown, Bates again tried to gather his senses and sea legs. He found his progress blocked not by his own will, but by the referee, who placed his palm on Bates’ chest with one hand while starting the 10-count with the other.

“One!” Lane shouted to the crowd, then whispered to Bates, “Stay down.”

“Two!” Lane shouted to the crowd, then whispered to Bates, “Stay down.”

“Three!” Lane shouted to the crowd, and by then the wounded heavyweight was getting the message that the canvas was the safest place in the arena.

After a few more seconds, the fight ended. It took some doing, but Bates managed to shake enough rubber out of his legs to regain his footing. He meandered out of the ring under the escort of his cornermen and lived to fight again. Although his career was unspectacular, he went on to fight several top contenders and never failed to tell the story of how Mills Lane saved him from further damage by pinning him to the canvas.

Lane was in the ring through the 1980s and ‘90s for some of boxing’s most memorable championship fights at a time the sport was enjoying its fleeting heyday. As well-known as the champs and challengers themselves, Lane was a disciplined Marine at heart and had the advantage of experience as a successful amateur and professional fighter before working his way through the University of Nevada and the University of Utah Law School.

He brought that same level of intensity to the Washoe County prosecutor’s office, where he would serve as district attorney, and to the bench as a district judge in 1990. By the end of the century, his popularity grew so great that he was featured on the TV show “Judge Mills Lane.”

“He was a tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy,” former Nevada Gov. and Sen. Richard Bryan says. “No sugarcoating. Mills would have been good serving in many different capacities, but he certainly wouldn’t have been a good representative at the United Nations. He was a straight-shooter.”

In 1998 Lane published a thoroughly entertaining memoir of boxing and the legal arena called “Let’s Get It On.” Although the title made it sound a little like an homage to Marvin Gaye, it was based on Lane’s famous signature line.

That line resounded like a trumpet in the ears of fight fans and fighters alike. Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame journalist Guy Clifton was right on when he tweeted, “I cannot say how many fights I covered at which Mills Lane received the loudest ovation at introductions, except to say it was every fight.”

Although Lane was all business in the ring and courtroom, there was a side of Mills that remained a kind of calloused idealist. In his book, he called for boxing to break the chains of monopolistic promoters, some of whom acted more like the gangsters who once owned the sport.

For all Lane’s success in the legal field, boxing and his family defined his life. After gamely battling the withering effects of a stroke he suffered in 2002, Lane died with wife Kaye and sons Terry and Tommy at his side.

Long after the final bell, Mills Lane will be remembered as a man who blended justice with mercy and believed in the rule of law, not the law of the jungle.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in Time, Readers Digest, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Ruralite and Desert Companion, among others. He also offers weekly commentary on Nevada Public Radio station KNPR.