Former referee and current Bellator color commentator “Big” John McCarthy wishes Jorge Masvidal vs. Nate Diaz could’ve gone on a little longer.
Masvidal and Diaz clashed in the UFC 244 headliner. “Gamebred” and the Stockton native were competing for a special BMF championship. In the end, it was Masvidal who scored the third-round TKO victory via doctor’s stoppage. The finish has been a hot debate amongst those in the MMA community and McCarthy has thrown in his two cents.
‘Big’ John McCarthy Talks Masvidal-Diaz Stoppage
On the latest edition of the Weighing In podcast, McCarthy said he hoped that someone would’ve tried to reason with the Octagon-side doctor before a final decision was made (via BJPenn.com).
“As a referee, I can’t tell you how many times I controlled the ringside physician. I would have a guy who’s cut and the doctor was like, ‘Eh, I think we need to stop this.’ I’d say, ‘Alright, hold on, I want you to think about this. It’s a big fight, both these guys are fighting hard. Yes, he’s cut, I see it, I know its a good cut. These fans came here for this fight. Let’s see if we can let him go another round, let’s see what happens. If it increases in any way, I’ll stop the fight and bring him over to you.’ You do that because the doctor wants to take care of the fighter. That’s what they do. You can go and look. Tyson Fury had his championship fight in Vegas. Look at his cuts on him. He had a cut on his eyelid, that’s always bad. Then he had a huge one above it and that fight went 12 rounds. Jon Jones when he fought Alexander Gustafsson (at UFC 165), I had the doctor telling me, ‘We need to stop the fight,’” McCarthy continued.
McCarthy went on to say that sometimes, the referee or someone qualified in the state’s athletic commission needs to grab a hold of the situation.
“That fight didn’t stop. There’s reasons why. Sometimes you gotta control that guy, tell him, ‘Hey, we’re here working together, I’ll bring him over to you.’ It’s unfortunate (Diaz vs. Masvidal) was stopped. It was totally within the doctor’s rights and Dan (Miragliotta) did nothing wrong. But I wish it would have been handled where someone was there and said, ‘Hey, let’s think about this and try to give him one more round if we can.’”
