Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [149]
It was a phenomenal offer with an incredible salary, but in the end I just didn’t believe the business plan was well thought out, so I didn’t accept.
However, this led to conversations between the new promotion and TFN, and by July the network had exclusive Canadian rights to air Affliction’s first event from Anaheim, California. As part of the deal, I was loaned out to Affliction as its color commentator alongside NFL reporter and TV host Jay Glazer and former UFC fighter Frank Trigg. Along with color commentary, I was asked to do the in-ring interviews with the night’s winners after their bouts.
Affliction “Banned” was a grandiose pay-per-view event with an astronomical $3 million dollar—plus fighter payroll to match.
15 In the main event, Emelianenko swarmed former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia with punches and submitted his much larger opponent in only thirty-six seconds.
After the quick finish, I found myself where I usually am at these events, standing between two fighters—except this time I had a microphone in my hand. Randy Couture, who’d announced his resignation from the UFC months before in order to pursue a bout with Emelianenko, had stepped into the ring for a brief, respectful exchange with him. At the time, this was the biggest fight that could happen in the sport, so having these two standing next to one another blew the top off the Honda Center that night.
Though my job description in the sport had changed dramatically, I was still being asked to participate in some athletic commission functions. Prior to “Banned,” members of the Association of Boxing Commissions had invited me to be a part of a committee that would review and propose revisions to the existing MMA regulations. The committee presented its findings two weeks before the Affliction show at the annual ABC meeting in Montreal. Part of that presentation had included the introduction of additional weight divisions outside of the eight already widely utilized, which the ABC members voted on and passed by majority.
UFC President Dana White came out shortly after the vote and said his organization wouldn’t acknowledge the additional weight classes. He also pointed to me as the author of the controversial amendment, saying I was trying to change the rules of the sport.
In reality, my name had appeared on the revised MMA guidelines packet along with other names, but I wasn’t the one who’d written in that particular amendment.
In fact, I was in agreement with Dana. I thought adding more weight divisions would dilute the sport, as I thought it had in boxing. During the committee’s review period, I’d suggested only one additional weight class, between light heavyweight and heavyweight. I felt the disparity between the two divisions left fighters who weighed 220 to 230 pounds in a quandary. They had to either gain weight to keep up with some of the bigger behemoths or cut sometimes unrealistic amounts to get under 205 for the light heavyweight class. I suggested a cruiserweight division, or whatever they wanted to call it, for fighters weighing 205 to 230 pounds, and then heavyweight could be limited to 231 to 265 pounds.
No athletic commission would ever consider putting 145-pound champion José Aldo against 205-pound champion Jon Jones, but that was basically what they were doing when they matched someone like Randy Couture against Brock Lesnar, because the weight differential was the same. When you know a fighter like Lesnar weighs in at 265 pounds but by fight night is up to somewhere about 285 pounds, while Couture remains the same 220 pounds he weighed in at the day before, we’re talking a 65-pound difference.
I’d voiced my concerns