Keith Kizer steps down as head of Nevada State Athletic Commission

Longtime Nevada boxing head Keith Kizer suddenly resigned Friday, giving the influential commission two weeks before he will step down as one of the most prominent regulators in combat sports.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Kizer, 47, will return to the state attorney general’s office, where he worked prior to taking the job of the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s executive director in 2006.

“It’s time to move on,” Kizer told the newspaper. “It’s time to go back to being an attorney.”

MMAjunkie confirmed with Kizer his departure and return to the AG, where he once held the position of chief deputy attorney general in the office’s gaming division. Requests for further comment from MMAjunkie were not immediately returned late Friday.

NSAC chairman Francisco Aguilar, who accepted Kizer’s resignation, said the commission’s “board is grateful to Keith for his nearly eight years of dedicated service, which included the commission’s strongest years with regard to health and safety and fiscal soundness.

“My fellow commissioners and I wish Keith all the best in his new role.”

During his stewardship of the NSAC, Kizer became a polarizing figure both in boxing and MMA. Scoring controversies in two major boxing bouts – Timothy Bradley vs. Manny Pacquiao and this past September’s Floyd Mayweather vs. Saul Canelo – and recently in MMA with a UFC 167 welterweight title bout between champ Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks, put him in the crosshairs of combat sports observers.

Kizer previously served as legal counsel to the NSAC prior to taking the role of executive director from Marc Ratner, who resigned in 2006 to join the UFC as the promotion’s vice president of regulatory affairs.

Prior to his work with the attorney general, Kizer was a Las Vegas-based attorney specializing in employment law.