Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [146]
The Fight Network began to publicize my retirement from officiating and my move to full-time analysis and commentary. They’d had a conference call for me earlier that week with the media, and I’d chattered on about this great new opportunity to offer insight into fights for the fans. I’d told everyone how excited I was, but inside I’d been scared and felt like a fool for having a conference call to announce my retirement from refereeing. I’d wanted to just walk away and not make any fuss about the whole situation, but my new employer had wanted to use this opportunity to get publicity for the channel. The whole time, I wondered if leaving was the right decision.
I didn’t want my final night as a referee to change anything for the fighters I was there to protect, and I certainly didn’t want any extra attention. I was completely relieved when Lorenzo, Dana, and the rest of the Zuffa staff approached me backstage between bouts and privately presented me with an Audemars Piguet watch with an Octagon-shaped face. I certainly appreciated the gesture. It was something they definitely didn’t have to do, and it showed just how classy they could be.
I refereed the main event that night, a bout between hungry lightweights Roger Huerta and Clay Guida. As he’d done with almost all of his opponents before him, Guida drilled Huerta into the mat with takedown after takedown and pulled well ahead on the scorecards. But in the third round, Huerta, who’d been tossed around and pretty much abused the entire fight, caught Guida with a knee as he bull-rushed in with his head down. Huerta got the rear-naked choke submission shortly afterward to punctuate a highly emotional and entertaining come-from-behind win.
It was a perfect fight for me to end my career with.
Afterward, The Fight Network hosted a retirement party for me in one of the hotel’s famous suites upstairs. Dana and Lorenzo didn’t attend, but there was a great turnout from fighters, including Matt Hughes, Tito Ortiz, Forrest Griffin, Urijah Faber, and many others. Many were kind enough to give me a validating word.
When he’d heard I’d be hanging up my black uniform, Royce Gracie, who was in the Philippines at the time and couldn’t attend, had sent a message to be read for the other guests. UFC announcer Bruce Buffer did the honors. “We are a dying breed, John, but it was fun while it lasted. Good luck, my friend. Wish you all the best in life and future endeavors. Your friend, Royce.”
At my retirement party: standing between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin, the two guys who turned the sport around with one fight (December 2007)
A few nights later, back at home in California, I got a phone message from Dana White. The UFC president sounded like he was out enjoying a cocktail or two, but I still got a kick out it. “John, you are the fucking best,” an excitable White said. “I fucking love you, man.”
A picture that says it all about this sport: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski, Affliction “Day of Reckoning” (January 2009)
LET’S GET IT ON!
The journey is the reward.
—Chinese proverb
It only took me a day to realize I’d jumped off a cliff I should never have been standing on.
The morning after my retirement match at The Ultimate Fighter 6, I sat in Las Vegas with my new bosses at The Fight Network to take a meeting with M-1 Global, a Russian-based fight promotion that had recently teamed up with American partners, including longtime manager and promoter Monte Cox. As a management team, M-1 Global also controlled the business dealings of Fedor Emelianenko, who was considered the world’s greatest heavyweight. After turning down a lucrative offer for Emelianenko to fight in the UFC, M-1 had instead decided to start its own North American fight promotion using Emelianenko as its poster boy.
As the new executive of strategic planning for the channel, I had been the one to bring the two groups together when TFN expressed interest in airing M-1 events. However, one of my bosses turned the entire point of the meeting around