Big John Offers Take On Controversial Cejudo vs. Dillashaw Stoppage

The sport’s most famous referee and modern day MMA renaissance man “Big” John McCarthy has weighed in on the Henry Cejudo vs. T.J. Dillashaw stoppage.

The world leader in MMA made their anticipated debut on the ESPN platforms last weekend. The evening culminated with Cejudo mowing down Dillashaw in just 32 seconds. To say that referee Kevin MacDonald’s stoppage has been controversial may be an understatement.

MMA Fighting‘s Marc Raimondi caught up with McCarthy at Bellator 214’s media day yesterday. “Big” John had something to say.

“When you say ‘good stoppage, bad stoppage,’ I’m not into saying what’s good or bad. Kevin made a decision. It’s his decision, he’s the one that’s got to live with his decision, along with TJ and the UFC themselves.

“If you’re going to ask me, there’s things that I want a referee to think about,” he continued. “If you’re going to ask me would I have stopped it at that point, no. I wouldn’t have stopped it at that point. This is the reason why: this is not a fight between two guys who are just brought together like ‘oh we’re going to match this fight up,’ whatever fight it is. It’s not, you know, Fighter A against Fighter B.”

Huge Fight

McCarthy continued on that they were fighting for the future of the UFC flyweight division. That gave the fight more weight according to McCarthy.

”This is a fight where both guys have earned the right to be in the position. They’ve both created a background that’s put them in the position of being champions, and now these are champions going after each other — one to save his entire weight class basically, the other to prove ‘those guys are not as good as me.’”

You can watch all of John McCarthy and Marc Raimondi’s chat below.