Simply put, longtime referee John McCarthy is synonymous with the UFC – you can’t have one without the other. From the organization’s early days as a pay-per-view spectacle, to the lean years and on to the sport’s recent resurgence under the ownership of Zuffa, McCarthy was there, with his trademark phrase ‘Let’s Get it On’ being the battle cry for a generation of fight fans. UFC.tv recently had a chance to sit down with the premier referee in the sport for the Ultimate Q&A…

John McCarthy: When I look back at the UFC, where it has come from to what it is now, I am amazed.  I always loved the sport, and I felt that it could be one of the most popular and exciting sports of the new millennium, but I also knew that too many people with too much influence and way too little knowledge would be standing in the way.

 

To think back on how it all got started, it shocks me that it ever really happened.  Rorion Gracie was my Jiu-Jitsu instructor.  I had been working out with Rorion and Royce, his younger brother.  It was a great time and I was a true believer in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I loved the fact that the Gracies would fight anyone, anytime.  I believed in them and they in return believed in me.  For the first UFC I was being used as a sparring partner for Royce. Since many of the competitors in the first UFC were large men it was important to have Royce train with people that were also large.  At the time I was about 6-4 and 280 to 285 pounds, so I was a natural fit as a sparring partner.  I went to the first UFC in Denver and helped with things.  After the show was over I did not know if there would ever be another.  Back in Torrance, California, Rorion pulled me aside after one of our workouts and asked me if I would be a referee for the UFC.  The rest is history. Rorion was upset with what happened during UFC 1.  If you watch the first fight between Teila Tuli and Gerard Gordeau the referee stopped the fight before Teila tapped or his corner threw in the towel.  That was how the fight was supposed to stop, but the referee stopped the fight because he knew Teila was hurt and he wanted to see if Teila was all right.

 

 

JM: At UFC 2 there were 15 fights in one night.  I was the only referee for all of the fights and I had strict instructions from Rorion about what he wanted.  There were two ways for a fight to end: 

 

·        The fighter taps out

·        The fighter’s corner throws in the towel

 

That was it.  Under no circumstances was the referee to interfere with the fight unless one of these occurred or one of the two rules was broken, which were

 

·        No eye gouging

·        No biting

 

Not much work really had to be done by the referee and that became a problem.  Rorion was not really concerned with anyone’s health or welfare outside of Royce.  Many of the fighters involved in the early UFCs were guys who probably did not belong in a “No Holds Barred” event.  They believed that they were tough and invincible and actually told their corners that if they threw in the towel, they would be the next victim of the fighter. 

 

Unfortunately, many of the fighters were knocked silly and were unable to gather enough of a thought process to physically tap.  I would scream to their corner to throw in their towel and they would look at me, shake their head “No” and proceed to throw the towel into the audience.  It was not a good situation.  Luckily there were no severe or lasting injuries to any of the fighters, but I knew that I would need to be given the ability to stop the fight. If someone was seriously hurt or knocked out, there needed to be someone there to protect them from more harm. 

 

Rorion and SEG changed the criteria for stopping a fight at UFC 3.  From that point on everything began to evolve.  The only problem was that they would change the rules from one show to the next, so it became hard for the fans to understand what was going on during some of the fights.  With more rules comes more responsibility for the referee.  Our main function should be and always has been fighter safety.  One of the biggest differences now compared to the early UFC is the experience and skill of the fighters stepping into the Octagon.  There are also athletic commissions involved now so you will not see one referee officiating 15 fights.  Now if you go to a UFC in Las Vegas, you will see approximately four referees and five to six judges for just one show.

 

 

JM: In the early days, the UFC was set up as a showcase of grapplers vs strikers.  Now every fighter that steps into the Octagon is a hybrid athlete, combining stand-up skills with submission. The athletes are better, the fights are better, the organization is better and the matchmaking is much better.  In the past the matchmaker was attempting to put on spectacles.  It’s not that the fights were staged or worked, but the outcome of the fight was inevitable when you looked at the two fighters.  In many cases they wanted a car crash and that is what they got.  As the referee it was difficult because you were there to protect the fighters and that is not easy to do when one fighter totally outclasses their opponent.  Now the matchmaking is much better.  Joe Silva does a great job in bringing in new talent that can compete on a world-class level.  The skills of today’s fighters far exceed that of the early day fighters.  That does not mean that no fighter from the past could compete today.  Some could, depending on who their opponent was, but I don’t believe that any of the fighters in the first 10 UFCs could compete at the championship level today.  Today’s champions are so good at what they do.  They all have their specialty, be it Chuck Liddell, who likes to stand up and throw heavy hands, or Matt Hughes, who likes to ground and pound, but they can both fight outside of their comfort zone.  Many people look at Matt and say “He’s a wrestler, he takes you down and beats on you until you quit.”  He can do that, but he can also submit you anywhere at anytime.  His last three fights have all ended in the first round by submission.  The best part is the fighters are all great guys.  Most of them are very humble, quiet guys who just happen to be great at fighting.  It helps make my job very enjoyable.

 

JM: Zuffa saved the UFC.  It was dying a slow and painful death until Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta bought it.  They, along with Dana White, have done an incredible job of building the UFC into a spectacular show that sells out the MGM and Mandalay Bay in Vegas. There are “Difference Makers” in this world and those guys have it.  People who take a chance on something and refuse to let any of the obstacles stand in their way, people that have visions of something great and work tirelessly to make that vision a reality.  Lorenzo, Frank and Dana are those kinds of people.

 

The UFC started building from the start, not so much in the size of the arenas, but in the attention it was grabbing from the pay per view audience.  The first show was at the McNichols Arena in Denver Colorado and the second show was also in Denver, but the show was held at an arena called the Mammoth Garden Event Center.  McNichols was a very nice arena that the Denver Nuggets used as their home stadium.  The Mammoth Garden Event Center was a hellhole that looked more like a rundown dance hall than an arena for a sports event. It started to change for the better from UFC 3 through UFC 9.  The arenas were good; some small, some large but no real pits like the Mammoth Garden. The crowds were getting larger at every event.  Then the legal troubles started to build; Senator John McCain started a campaign to stop the UFC.  Everything started to crumble when the show was pulled off of pay-per-view because that was what paid for the show.  In the end the UFC was on its last leg when Lorenzo, Frank and Dana came in. 

 

Now, when you go to a UFC it is a two-day event.  The weigh-ins attract more people than some of the older UFC shows had in attendance for the fights.  Because of Lorenzo Fertitta, the sport was sanctioned in New Jersey and Nevada.  Most people don’t realize that the old owners had tried to get sanctioned by these same states.  Lorenzo had the background, connections and business sense to open the doors that had been locked tight before.  People in the commissions trusted him and believed in him, so they took a chance on MMA, not because they believed in the sport, but because they believed in Lorenzo Fertitta.  The UFC is now one of the top revenue makers for those commissions and that has helped in making the commissions understand that the UFC / MMA is a legitimate sport.  The commissions have become much more comfortable with the sport and they realize that some of the perceptions they might have had in the past were just that, perceptions, not the truth about what really is taking place in the sport of MMA.