Filed under: Fighting
“Big” John McCarthy considers refereeing MMA fights a passion and admits it was a mistake for him four years ago to leave officiating to become an analyst/commentator.
In an appearance on Tuesday’s edition of The MMA Hour, McCarthy discussed his purpose in the sport, just one of the many topics in his new autobiography Let’s Get It On! written with journalist Loretta Hunt.
“I thought [making the jump to television] was at the time what I needed to do,” McCarthy said. “But looking at it now, years later, I was wrong I think.
“I looked at how the landscape was and I read it wrong and I probably internalized things and looked at things a certain way that other people weren’t looking at,” he continued. “That’s just part of human nature and life, and you got to make decisions and you got to live with those decisions and move on from there and learn from them and that’s what I’ve done.”
In December 2007, McCarthy made the announcement that he would join Canada’s The Fight Network on a full-time basis as an on-air personality. Fans accustomed to seeing him overlook fights inside of a cage would now have to become more familiar with him through his new hosting and analysis duties.
During the announcement, it was declared that McCarthy would “retire” after 14 years of officiating fights, totalling 535. Turns out, that was not the way McCarthy would have liked to have handled his transition, and it was an early sign he would soon have regrets about his new venture.
“I did not want to do all the retirement stuff, that was The Fight Network wanting to do that cause they wanted publicity,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t want any of that.”
Additionally, McCarthy considers the other mistake was the company he was joining. The impressions he had about the channel were different from what he would see in practice, citing specifically, backroom politics.
His stay would be short-lived. Just 11 months after the announcement of signing with The Fight Network, McCarthy returned to refereeing at a Nov. 21 Strikeforce event in San Jose. Taking the center of the cage that evening, McCarthy felt at home again.
“[Loving what you do] is the most important thing there is,” McCarthy said. “What makes people good at what they do, is loving what you do. I loved refereeing and I love refereeing now. That’s my passion.”