{"id":41423,"date":"2026-11-03T02:56:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T02:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/John-McCarthy-explains-his-long-absence-from-UFC-officiating-203468"},"modified":"2026-11-03T02:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T02:56:30","slug":"john-mccarthy-explains-his-long-absence-from-ufc-officiating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/john-mccarthy-explains-his-long-absence-from-ufc-officiating\/","title":{"rendered":"John McCarthy explains his long absence from UFC officiating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

John McCarthy has explained why he hasn\u2019t refereed an
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> bout since 2017.<\/p>\n

McCarthy, who helped develop the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial
\nArts, said Dana
\nWhite<\/a> was unhappy when he joined the Bellator<\/a>
\ncommentary team. He suggested White\u2019s opposition contributed to his
\nabsence from UFC assignments.<\/p>\n

John McCarthy says Bellator commentary role angered Dana White,
\ndiscusses UFC\u2019s influence on referee appointments<\/h2>\n

State athletic commissions generally assign referees for MMA events
\nwithin their jurisdictions. McCarthy said the UFC provides
\ncommissions with names of officials it prefers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went and worked for Bellator and Dana White was absolutely
\npissed about that and said, \u2018I don’t want him.\u2019 And he doesn’t need
\nme,\u201d McCarthy told Ariel Helwani. \u201cThat’s fine\u2026 You want the truth?
\nI’ll tell you the truth. They put in names for people they feel
\ncomfortable with, which they should be able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

Big John McCarthy reveals why he hasn’t
\nofficiated a UFC event since 2017 and pushes back on Dana White’s
\nclaims about how officials are selected: \u201cI went and worked for
\nBellator, and Dana White was absolutely pissed about that and said,
\n\u2018I don’t want him.\u2019 And he doesn’t need me. That’s fine. You want
\nthe truth? I’ll tell you the truth. They put in names for people
\nthey feel comfortable with, which they should be able to do.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani)
\nNovember 2, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McCarthy has explained why he hasn\u2019t refereed an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout since 2017. McCarthy, who helped develop the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, said Dana White was unhappy when he joined the Bellator commentary team. He suggested White\u2019s opposition contributed to his absence from UFC assignments. John McCarthy says Bellator commentary role […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}