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The past several weeks have brought controversial outcomes to several major bouts. At the center of the controversy at both EliteXC: Primetime and also at UFC 85 a week later was New Jersey-based referee Dan Miragliotta.
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Herb Dean also found himself in the spotlight after deducting two points from Nathan Marquardt during UFC 85 bout vs. Thales Leites. Leites was declared the winner, but Marquardt would have won on the scorecards had it not been for the deductions.
Much has been said and written about the calls made by Miragliotta and Dean. It turns out that of lot of the information expressed by pundits has been incorrect. So who better to clear up the questions and uncertainty than former UFC senior official and current Fight Network television commentator "Big" John McCarthy?
CBSSports.com recently caught up with the highly respected McCarthy in order to clarify several of the calls in question. We also took the opportunity to ask him about a recent report that he will recommend to the Association of Boxing Commissions in July that knees to the head of a downed opponent should be re-instituted. Additionally, we asked him about unconfirmed rumors that he was approached by EliteXC to officiate its CBS main event between Kimbo Slice and James Thompson.
CBSSports.com: Sherdog is reporting that during the Association of Boxing Commissions next conference in July in Montreal that you will formally recommend the legalization of knees to the head of a downed opponent. What's your reasoning behind such a recommendation?
John McCarthy: You need to have a review of the goals of mixed martial arts. In any sport there's an annual review of rules with changes made, and this is what needs to be done with MMA. Because something about knees on the ground will be introduced doesn't mean it's going to change, but it needs to be brought up, because it's an element within mixed martial arts that is a viable technique. It's a very good technique, and fighters will do things at times because they know that they cannot be kneed to the head on the ground and they leave themselves open in areas because it's safe for them. And they wouldn't be able to do that if the knees were there; they know that, they're smart enough already.
It's not going to change things in a dramatic fashion, but it's just one of the elements of the sport that was taken away. It was taken away a long time ago because there were fights that happened. Back in 2000, in New Jersey, at the very first show that they had that they sanctioned for the IFC at the Tropicana Hotel, Gan McGee was kneeing an opponent to the head and they (the New Jersey Athletic Control Board) thought it was horrible. He was a big 300-plus pound guy going against a 230-pound guy and it didn't look good and they said "we can't have that." And that was the reason that knees were taken out.
It's been a long time since then and people understand the sport more and things have progressed. It's just time to take a look at that rule and ask, "Is this such a bad thing? Or could we bring this back?" Because it does open up the fight; it gives guys in position, such as if you have me in side control and I'm underneath you, I don't have a lot of tools that I can use to attack you. But if I can knee you, and knee to the head if you put your head a certain way, that helps me at times.
Q: A source informed me that EliteXC put in a request to have you officiate the main event during the CBS show between Kimbo Slice and James Thompson. Can you confirm or deny that report?
JM: EliteXC did ask for me to do the fight. That's true. But I've retired from officiating and am trying to do the commentating. I decided that it was not in my best interest to do it, even though I honestly would have loved to have done it. The New Jersey Athletic Control Board has their guys and their guys are Dan Miragliotta, Kevin Mulhall, and sometimes Yves Lavigne.
It's kind of hard for someone to come in and take that spot when they're doing the smaller shows that are in New Jersey and based on that they should have the ability to do the big shows. But it was asked of me and I was the one who turned it down, so it's a moot point.
Q: I wanted to delve into that show some more. First, I wanted to ask about the Scott Smith vs. Robbie Lawler fight. Smith took a thumb to the eye and the fight was declared a no contest. He was not given five minutes to recover from the foul. Was that the correct call?
JM: The correct call was that they stopped the fight because Scott Smith said "I can't see." And any doctor -- and I don't care who they are -- you can look at the New Jersey doctor, they're no different than any other doctor; there's no doctor that is going to allow a fighter to go back out and fight when he says he can't see.
