Fighters Only

Issue 006

August 2005

UFC ref ‘Big’ John McCarthy has a reputation just as large as he is. Paul Thatcher ‘gets in on’ with the man himself.

John, How old are you?

42 unfortunately

How did you get involved and become the ref for the UFC?

I got involved with the UFC because I was working out with Rorian Gracie and Royce at the time that the UFC was being brought about. I would work out and spar with Royce and after the first UFCs Rorian asked me to be the referee and I’ve kinda been there ever since.

How did you bump into those guys initially?

(John laughs again) the truth is I had a friend who was a Judo guy, I would wrestle him and he would try to show me some moves. He told me there were some guys from South America that did nothing but ground fighting and that I would really like what they did and then Rorian was sitting on a committee that I was on. So that’s how I got to meet him.

So you were already immersed in the martial arts before you met the Gracies’ then?

Yeah I had already done some stuff in the martial arts.

What had you done prior to meeting them?

I did Akiru, Jiu-jitsu and wrestling

So you wrestled at school? And what about at college?

Yes, at school but not at college.

You are a policeman; what do you do for the police force.

Yes, I teach defensive tactics....err excuse me......i’m head of defensive tactics department of the Los Angeles PD. I teach tactics out of there, which is everything a police officer does that doesn’t have to do with reports: how to handle a high risk stop, how to handle a suspect, how to handle a robbery, a burglary, as far as the physical actions are concerned, not the report.

So you teach officers how to control people in a violent situation?

Yeah they (police officers) learn how to control an individual, how to grapple. They end up having to grapple me or someone like me during their academy training for about four minutes.

What belt are you?

I’m an old belt…

You’ve been training in Jiu-jitsu for 10-12 years, who have you trained with during that time?

Yeah, I’ve trained with a bunch of different guys, the Gracies,

Jean Jac Machado, I just have fun with it.

Do you roll much any more?

Well, unfortunately I only get to roll a couple of times a week now.

What’s your favourite technique?

As far as grappling, ohh, honestly I like choking guys out, that’s my favourite thing to do. If you can get someone and choke them out that’s total control, that’s what I like. I love triangles, that’s a blast, omoplatas but with those your still not taking away their ability to come at you. In the end with the choke there is nothing they can do.

Having seen the UFC in it’s early days to where it is now what comments do you have on the difference from then to now?

You know the UFC has done an incredible thing for martial arts as a whole. Martial arts has changed more in the last 10 or 12 years than it had in a long time prior to the UFC. People understand what’s effective in martial arts. What is good for a competition compared to a true physical encounter on the street. Some of the guys that first started in the UFC were talented a lot of them came from a school that really had been in a true physical encounter with another person that was skilled. The guys today are so much more skilled than the guys that were fighting in the beginning of the UFC. Now they are good at everything, they’re good on the ground, they’re good standing up., they’re not just one skill. When it started out it was one section -- grapplers against strikers. Now you just don’t find that. They are well rounded athletes that do everything well now. If you’re not a complete fighter today you’re not going to last long.

What fights stick out in your mind as the most memorable?

Oh wow…I really enjoyed when Tito Ortiz and Frank Shamrock because it was two guys -- one was just coming up and one had been really tearing things up at such a level that was pretty impressive. The size and epic proportions of Tito vs Ken Shamrock, Randy vs Chuck, Matt Hughs vs Sakuri, Matt Hughes vs Carlos Newton -- both of those fights were great, I love all of them.

Matt Hughs vs Frank Trigg that just took place was incredible. I loved the George St. Pierre vs Jason Miller, I thought no matter what, what you see on TV and what you see when your in the ring, Jason Miller was incredibly tough. He was put in some unbelievably bad positions and you can tell George St Pierre came in to the Abhu Dhabi here and took out the guy that was runner up last year; he can grapple and he can submit and he had Jason Miller in some bad positions and Jason was getting out of them. I thought it was a great fight, maybe it was a little one sided to a point but I thought he showed such heart and character in that fight.

Has there been a moment when as a ref you’ve made a call and after realised it was wrong?

Absolutely, I’ve made mistakes and I’ve always tried to learn from them. Sakuraba vs Conan, I thought he was hurt and was going down, when really he was shooting for an ankle pick and I thought he was hurt -- that was a big mistake. Matt Lindland vs Murilo Bustamante, I thought Matt was tapping, I realised he wasn’t.

I’ve made mistakes and I tried to eliminate them.