Mitchell Howard "Mitch" Halpern (July 14, 1967 – August 20, 2000) was a renowned boxing referee who officiated some of boxing's biggest matches.

He began his career in March 1991 and went on to referee 87 championship fights and hundreds of non-title fights around the world. He was criticized for not stopping the fight on May 6, 1995 when Jimmy Garcia challenged Gabriel Ruelas for his WBC super featherweight title. Garcia lost that fight by TKO and died 13 days later from injuries sustained during the fight. He was in the ring when Evander Holyfield knocked out Mike Tyson for the WBA heavyweight title in 1996. He was scheduled to have refereed the infamous "Bite Fight" rematch but Tyson's camp vehemently opposed and he was replaced by Mills Lane.

Halpern was also the referee for many big Las Vegas fights, including Oscar De La Hoya vs. both Ike Quartey and Félix Trinidad, the rematch between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, the first fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield and the first of three meetings between Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera.

Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is a retired American professional boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old. Tyson won his first 19 professional bouts by knockout, with 12 of them occurring in the first round. He won the WBC title in 1986 after defeating Trevor Berbick by a TKO in the second round. In 1987, Tyson added the WBA and IBF titles after defeating James Smith and Tony Tucker. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, and the only heavyweight to individually unify them.

In 1988, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in the first 91 seconds of the fight. Tyson successfully defended the world heavyweight championship nine times, including victories over Larry Holmes and Frank Bruno. Tyson lost his titles to 42-to-1 underdog James "Buster" Douglas on February 11, 1990, in Tokyo, Japan, by a knockout in round 10. Tyson continued in his quest to regain the titles, defeating Donovan Ruddock twice in 1991. Tyson was then scheduled to take on the undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield but pulled out due to injury.