Issue 190

May 2020

Or a judge for that matter. As the pressure on MMA officials intensifies – fanned by social media – Fighters Only looks at the increasing difficulties they face and asks if it’s fast becoming an impossible job

Since the unified rules of MMA were implemented in 2009, the sport has gone from strength-to-strength in terms of its popularity, but some would argue that it is contested under rules and scoring criteria that are not fit for purpose. Seldom a week goes by in MMA where fans and media don’t level criticism at referees or judges and in the last 12 months it’s been none more apparent than at the highest level of the sport.

With recent high-profile incidents like referee Herb Dean calling the fight between Robbie Lawler and Ben Askren to a premature end at UFC 235, to the criticism leveled at the judges following Jon Jones’ decision win over Dominick Reyes at UFC 247, it’s widely acknowledged that the pressure on officials in MMA has never been greater.

But it’s not just pressure coming from the fans and media. The fighters themselves have had a part to play in the recent criticism of officials. Last December Colby Covington took issue with referee Marc Goddard’s fifth-round stoppage in his loss to Kamaru Usman. The majority of those watching around the world believed Goddard had made the right call but Covington later stated that Goddard was “pathetic” and that he should “never referee another fight in the UFC ever again.”

With so much disdain and blame being sent the way of officials in the modern-day, Fighters Only spoke to some of the best minds in the sport to understand why it’s happening, and why anyone would ever think about becoming a referee or judge in 2020. Of course, the first man to ask was none other than the multiple-winner of the World MMA Awards Referee of The Year, “Big” John McCarthy.

“There’s no compelling reason to be an official these days other than just being someone who loves the sport and wants to see it made better,” McCarthy says. 

“I got to admit, sometimes it is a thankless undertaking. There are times when you 100-percent make the absolute right call, but still, you get criticized. You will get people saying you don’t deserve to do this for a living and that you should never referee or judge again. Crazy stuff gets said on social media.

“I always tell people that first of all, you need to have incredibly thick skin to be an official in MMA,” he continues. “You have to make sure these people don’t affect you personally or your performance in that job. You also need to have certain people around you who you believe in that will give you honest feedback. Those are the people you listen to. It’s a skill in itself and it’s not a job just anyone can do.”

 Having stepped away from referring for the foreseeable future, McCarthy currently views fights from a different vantage point in the Bellator MMA color commentary position. Whilst he hasn’t put on the refereeing shirt for well over a year, McCarthy still feels the pain whenever his former colleagues come into question and he feels the ever-increasing amount of opinions are being amplified by social media.

“In the last five years, people have come to the point where they think MMA isn’t this new anymore and that they understand the sport,” McCarthy explains. “In the past, I think a lot of people didn’t get it, but now they do, and they all have an opinion. These opinions are now coming out of social media and because of the way it works some of those opinions can spread far and wide.

“In my opinion, the internet kept MMA alive for a long time. Now I think that with the likes of Twitter and Instagram, what we used to classify as ‘water cooler talk’ is now happening online and these opinions now reach a lot of people. When that opinion isn’t in line with the ruleset, that talk can cause a lot of unnecessary pressure on the referee and judges.”

Whilst McCarthy acknowledges that criticism is to be expected and is sometimes actually justified, he’s far more worried about a growing trend that’s developed in the past year.

“I think it’s fair to say that fighters, managers, and people within the sport itself are starting to attack the decisions and actions of the referees and judges in a more profane way,” McCarthy argues. “It’s often dramatic and done because they want to make excuses. Referees and judges are now having to deal with things that aren’t even true, but fighters are putting it out there on their social media and making it grow. That’s not easy to handle.”

While the aforementioned incident between Covington and Goddard at UFC 245 is perhaps the prime example of a fighter criticizing a referee, it’s by no means the only one. Given the high-pressure nature of their job, McCarthy believes that officials need to be protected more by both promotions and the Athletic Commissions that appoint them. It’s not something he’s holding out much hope of happening though.

“Fighters now use referees and judges as excuses for when they lost a fight,” McCarthy says. “Yes, sometimes mistakes are made, and things could’ve been done better, but more often than not, and it’s happening increasingly, fighters attack officials in the post for no reason. It’s disgusting and I would love to see promotions discipline fighters for making claims that are malicious and are proved to be factually incorrect. They should get fines and be suspended. If that actually happened, I think we would see a lot less of this happening.

“If you look at basketball, soccer, baseball, what you’ll notice is those organizations protect their officials way more and way better than the world of MMA does,” he adds. “The UFC, ONE Championship, Bellator, all of them look at it like it’s not their job. The Athletic Commissions like to stay quiet and won’t say the truth even when they know the truth. They aren’t the ones being impacted by this. The sport as a whole does a horrible job of protecting officials and they get thrown to the lions.”

Whilst reactive action to reprimand false accusations would be nice, McCarthy believes that there’s a wider job to be done to educate the entire MMA community about the current ruleset. “Big John” thinks better communication about the rules would enable better understanding and what’s currently happening isn’t good enough.

“The UFC is the biggest promotion in the world and when one of their commentators is about to call a big fight the production team put up a ‘Rules of the Octagon’ graphic,” McCarthy explains. “It talks about fights being judged by three judges, but then they say ‘striking and grappling, followed by aggression and Octagon control.’

“What they actually mean is, striking and grappling are what the judges are looking at. If they can determine a winner based upon either of those two criteria, then they don’t even go to aggression or Octagon control. The UFC sort of announce it though like all four elements are worth the same. I think it’s fair to say it’s not effectively educating the audience or the fans.”

It’s often suggested that there needs to be a new MMA scoring system, but this isn’t an opinion McCarthy shares. Concepts such as open scoring and utilizing more judges have been tried out by the likes of Invicta FC and Absolute Championship Berkut, but McCarthy is adamant that the current system is more than adequate and it’s just the implementation that has to change.

“A lot of people think we need to change how fights are scored, but the criteria for judging fights is very good and it works,” McCarthy reasons. “It’s been adapted over time to reflect what a fight really is. A fight is based upon fighters going in there and trying to damage one another and get their opponent to a position where they are either overwhelmed by activity, submitted, knocked out, or a referee stops the fight. That’s what we do.

“The criteria isn’t broken, it’s the implementation by some judges who don’t know how to use the criteria,” he continues. “It doesn’t matter if you bring in more judges or open scoring. That won’t change the quality of the judging. It’s having the best possible people available sat in the seats and them implementing the scoring criteria. The use of criteria in the wrong fashion will always bring you bad results.”

Unfortunately, who officiates at what events isn’t up to the promotions or the fighters. At UFC 247, judge Joe Solis came under intense scrutiny following three controversial calls including a 49-46 scorecard for Jon Jones over Dominick Reyes in the main event.

History showed that Solis had only presided over 10 UFC fights before his UFC championship fight bow and in many of them he’d come under fire. Following UFC 247, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) stated they’d work with the UFC closer when appointing officials in the future and this is something McCarthy would certainly encourage.

“Another thing we have to do is be honest,” McCarthy states. “When these Athletic Commissions have shows like the UFC or Bellator come to their state, they have to realize that they have the responsibility to enhance that promotion. That promotion, let’s says the UFC, is bringing income to your state. The UFC could run things themselves and they’d be just fine, but they have to use them. The Athletic Commission’s job is to enhance and not detract, so they should bring the very best officials they have available to that show.

“Just think of how much money is on the line in a UFC title fight. A lot of people’s lives hinge on the right decisions being made and the rules being enforced. If the Athletic Commission isn’t putting the best person in the cage or on the seats to judge it, then they aren’t doing what’s best for the sport or the fighters.”

If the best men available could always be placed in the most important seats, it’s fair to say British judge Ben Cartlidge wouldn’t be short of assignments. The Englishman has dedicated himself to everything to do with judging fights and it’s no surprise that in the past year he’s been sat cageside for no fewer than four world title fights across the UFC and Bellator.

For some judging is a job, for Cartlidge, it’s a passion.

“Judging fights live is a world apart from watching fights live and even further from watching them at home,” Cartlidge recently told Fighters Only. “If you’re there judging live, then who else is doing what you’re doing? Nobody. There’s nothing quite like it.

“There’s nobody in that chair apart from you, it’s all on you. I’m never more alive than when I’m sitting in that seat, and I’m trying to unravel this complex kinetic puzzle in front of me. I knew from the first time I ever sat down to judge at an event that this was something different, and it hooked me in from there. After events I’m so mentally drained, it’s so hard to describe how this process takes it out of you. I’ve got nothing more to give when the show ends.”

Cartlidge has been sat cageside scoring some of the biggest fights in the UFC in the past year, but like most judges, his officiating career started in unglamorous fashion. Back in 2010, Cartlidge presided over a local MMA show held in a function room at a cricket ground in Northampton, England. Fast forward nine years later to 2019, and the Brit judged two UFC world title fights in Abu Dhabi and Melbourne, whilst also becoming the first-ever European official to judge MMA in America. It’s been quite the journey and he’s in a good place to offer advice to those considering that career path.

“If you’re an aspiring judge I’d say go through the IMMAF route, that’s the best way for young officials to get experience,” Cartlidge explains. “Get to a judging course and then look for a local event to start shadowing at, and look at working the IMMAF events eventually.

“The process of becoming an official never ends though, and you’ve got to be prepared to put in the hard yards. I started working with the UFC in 2013 but I mentally felt ready for it, because of the amount of time I’d spent judging regionally and honing my craft. You need to get the rounds in, get the miles in, and keep working hard to improve”

Cartlidge isn’t alone in advocating the benefit of getting as much experience as possible. McCarthy also believes that time in the cage for referees and time around the cage for judges is the key ingredient to becoming a top-level official.

“It’s so true, it’s all about getting as much experience as you can,” McCarthy argues. “The likes of Marc Goddard will probably be doing in the region of 80 shows a year and that’s more than one show a week. I was doing around 115 shows a year by the end of my career before I retired. There were only a couple of weeks there when I wasn’t working.

“I didn’t work Christmas or Thanksgiving weekend if those days fell on a weekend, but every other week I was doing up to four shows a week getting in those repetitions. The more fights you get, the more experience you have in the pressure situations and that only serves to benefit you.”

As well as being aligned on experience being key to success, Cartlidge also agrees with McCarthy’s views on the MMA scoring system. Having scored almost 2,000 fights with the likes of UFC, Bellator, KSW, Cage Warriors and Fight Nights Global, Cartlidge also feels that it’s not the scoring system that needs fixing.

“If you’ve got the right people in the chairs then in my mind, there isn’t a problem with judging,” Cartlidge argues. “I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the best officials from all over the globe, and I can honestly say these guys are world-class. We’re always going to disagree on close rounds, that’s human nature and comes with the territory. However, with the best officials working the biggest fights, there won’t be scorecards that can’t be explained and that’s the bit that’s important.

“Extra judges and open scoring are interesting concepts,” he continues. “But they don’t really tackle the perceived issues that most people have with judging, which is the criteria and more importantly with the understanding and practical application. If everyone took the time to read and understand the updated judging criteria, the landscape would change overnight.”

Consistent implementation and education in the current rules would no doubt improve the current situation with the way officials are perceived, but McCarthy believes there’s one huge barrier making things even more difficult. It’s a problem that McCarthy feels is relatively unique to MMA and one that frustrated him immensely during his officiating career.

“My biggest issue was always the variety of rulesets,” McCarthy says with a sigh. “We have a huge problem in MMA. When there are rule changes in sports like the NBA, MLB, etc. those changes are put into effect universally and those responsible for enforcing them are educated and trained. We don’t have that in MMA. Unfortunately, in MMA we have what I called ‘Kingdoms.’ We have State Athletic Commissions, the British boxing council, ISKA, the list goes on. They all don’t have the same ruleset or even judging criteria.

“It’s absolutely preposterous that a sport can do that to its athletes. Depending on where they’re competing, a fighter has to figure out what they can actually do in a sport that should be universally the same. It’s ridiculous that an official has to know multiple rulesets and have to make sure different ones are implemented in different locations.”

Aligning the rulesets would aid both referees and fighters, but something that will forever be dependent on the officials themselves is handling the pressure of the situation. McCarthy better than anyone knows what it’s like being the third person in the cage for some of the biggest UFC fights of all time and he admits that it’s a burden that not everyone will be able to carry.

“When you’re doing a UFC title fight there’s an incredible amount of pressure on that official,” McCarthy reasons. “You will see some of those officials who handle those fights do it perfectly well. The likes of Marc Goddard and Herb Dean, there are guys out there who handle it all perfectly. Of course, some guys let the pressure get to them but as the fight goes on, they get better. People have no idea what that’s like. The skill is in taking that pressure and not letting it get to you.”

The focus on officials in MMA has never been greater and the amplifier of social media means that mistakes are often highlighted. Though the recent headlines would suggest that the quality of referring and judging isn’t getting better, both McCarthy and Cartlidge strongly believe that isn’t the case.

“All we need to do is to commit to learning, and commit to becoming better officials,” Cartlidge says. “Who knows where this sport will go in the next 50 years but I can hand on heart say, that judging is better than it was when I started and it’ll be better in another ten years than it is now. We’ve got some of the best officials in the world regularly working mixed martial arts events, and that’s a fantastic thing to be able to say.”

“The top officials we have right now are better than the ones we had in the past,” McCarthy concurs. “They do the job consistently and have put the work in to make sure they understand the mechanics of what top referees and judges have to do. They use the ruleset correctly and come up with the correct decisions and in general, I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

There will never be a time when referees don’t make mistakes and all judging decisions are accepted, but it’s apparent there’s a job to be done bridging the growing gap between the MMA community and the officials working in the sport. Officiating effectively at the highest level of MMA requires experience, dedication and a deep understanding of the rulesets and scoring criteria. It’s fine to not agree with an application of the rules or a judge’s scorecard, but perhaps before casting a stone, we should remember the respect we should hold for the men and women who choose the role to protect our fighters and make difficult decisions under tremendous pressure.