Let's get it on. It's just four words, four like
really simple words. But if you've been watching
sports or honestly even just flipping through
channels any time in the last, what, 30 years?
Oh, at least. That phrase, it does something
to you. It physically gets a reaction. Your heart
rate picks up. It's the starting gun. It's the
Pavlovian bell for controlled violence. It's
this signal that all the talking, all the promotion,
all the pre -fight hype. Yeah. It's over. It's
over. The cage door is locked. And it's time
to go. Exactly. And the man who owns that phrase,
I mean, he owns it. The man who shouted it from
the center of the octagon for decades is who
we are talking about today. We are doing a deep
dive into the absolute legend of John Michael
McCarthy, who the entire world just knows as
Big John. And look, just calling him a referee
feels, I don't know, it feels like a massive
undersell, doesn't it? It totally does. Like
calling Steve Jobs a salesman. I mean, yeah,
he sold the product, but he also kind of invented
the entire category. McCarthy is that for MMA
officiating. That is a perfect way to put it,
because that's what we found when we started
digging into the source material for this. You
know, looking at his autobiography, career stats,
media appearances, all of it. It became so clear
so fast that John McCarthy isn't just a guy who
participated in MMA history. No. He's a foundational
architect. He helped lay the literal groundwork
for the sport as we know it today. And that's
the. mission for this deep dive, right? We're
going to explore that architecture. We want to
understand how a former LAPD officer, a beat
cop, goes from that world into the, let's call
it the Wild West of the early UFC. The human
cockfighting era, as it was famously called.
Exactly. And not just how he got there, but how
he became the guy who basically saved the sport
from itself by dragging it, sometimes kicking
and screaming, toward a set of rules. And then
we've got to talk about the second act. Because
for Big John, retirement didn't mean, you know,
taking up golf. It meant moving from inside the
cage to the commentary booth and the podcasting
world, which creates this entirely new dynamic.
Oh, it changes everything. When the enforcer
becomes the analyst, the person who wrote the
laws becomes the chief critic of how they're
applied. The whole conversation around the sport
shifts. It really does. Yeah, this is going to
be a good one. We've got a lot of ground to cover.
We are diving deep into the life, the career,
and the massive legacy of the third man in the
cage. Let's get it on. I knew you were going
to say that. I was waiting for it. Okay, so let's
start with the most obvious thing. The thing
you see before you hear anything else. His size.
His size. The nickname Big John. is uh not an
exaggeration not even a little bit i mean you
just look at the stats the source material has
them listed at six foot three so that's about
1 .91 meters and that's tall for sure yeah but
it's the weight that's the real factor here right
265 pounds yeah 120 kilograms okay so 265. Let's
put that in perspective for anyone listening
who maybe doesn't follow the UFC weight classes
super closely. That is the absolute hardline
upper limit for the heavyweight division. That's
it. If he weighed 266, he would be a super heavyweight,
a division that doesn't even exist in most major
promotions anymore. He is, by definition, the
biggest you can be and still fight for the UFC
heavyweight title. Which means he was almost
always bigger than the guys he was officiating.
Almost always. And this is so, so crucial. We
have to talk about the physics of what a referee
actually does in a fight. Because it's not a
passive role, right? I think a lot of people
might see it that way, like an umpire in baseball
or a referee in basketball. You blow a whistle,
but that's not it at all. Not at all. In combat
sports, the referee is a physical participant.
They are the emergency brake. They are the human
shield. Think about it for a second. You have
two elite heavyweights. Let's say two monsters
like Francis Ngannou and Derek Lewis. That's
over 500 pounds of human being. Exactly. 500
plus pounds of pure explosive muscle colliding.
Now, when a fight ends, especially with a knockout,
one guy is unconscious. The other guy is in a
state of like pure adrenal overload. He's just
been in a life or death struggle. His instinct
is to continue the threat elimination. The killer
be killed mode hasn't shut off yet. It hasn't.
And someone has to physically stop him. Now,
if your referee is, say, 5 '9 and 170 pounds,
what's he going to do? He's going to get thrown
into the fence. He's a speed bump. He has no
leverage, no mass to counter the fighter's momentum.
But when John McCarthy at 265 pounds steps in
between a fighter and his downed opponent, he's
an anchor. He's a wall of humanity. He can grab
a 250 -pound fighter and physically move him.
So his size wasn't just intimidating. It was
a legitimate safety tool. It was a prerequisite
for the job, especially back then. In the early
days, you know, the rules were looser. The fighters
were, frankly, less disciplined. You needed a
sheriff in the cage who was bigger and stronger
than the outlaws. Well, speaking of being the
sheriff, the origin of that nickname, Big John,
is one of my favorite stories. I always just
assumed it was something the fans or commentators
came up with. No, it came from the top. From
the boss himself. From Art Davey. And for anyone
who doesn't know the name, Art Davey was one
of the co -founders, the original promoter of
the UFC. He was the P .T. Barnum of the whole
operation. The guy signing the checks. The guy
signing the checks. And the story goes that very
early on, we're talking 93, 94, there was some
kind of disagreement or maybe just some alpha
male horseplay happening. The source just says
McCarthy forcibly lifted him. Which is such a
polite way of putting it. It is. Just picture
this scene. You've got the promoter, the head
honcho, and McCarthy, who is basically security
and an advisor at this point, just grabs him,
lifts him completely off the ground, and just
holds him there in the air. So Art Davey's feet
are just dangling. Just dangling. And in that
moment, the power dynamic is, let's say it's
clarified. It's really hard to argue about payroll
when you're not touching the floor. And that's
when Davey started calling him Big John. That
was it. It was a name born out of playful respect,
but also a very real submission to the physical
reality of the man. It wasn't a brand. It was
a statement of fact. It really sets the tone
for his whole career, doesn't it? That he wasn't
just an employee, he was a presence, a force
you had to reckon with. A non -negotiable presence,
yeah. But, and this is the part that I think
is so often overlooked, he wasn't just a big
tough guy. He wasn't some bouncer they pulled
off a door somewhere. His professional background
is the key to everything. This is the absolute
key to understanding his entire methodology as
a referee. He wasn't just muscle, he was a cop.
Los Angeles Police Department. LAPD. And not
just for a couple of years. This was his career.
It's his whole identity before MMA. And the timeline
here is just wild to me. The sources say he started
refereeing for the UFC in 1994 at UFC 2. Right.
He didn't retire from the LAPD until around 2008.
Whoa, whoa, wait. Let's just pause on that for
a second. Are you saying that for 14 years? Basically,
the entire boom period of the UFC, from the Dark
Ages to being on pay -per -view everywhere, the
most recognizable referee in the sport was also
a full -time police officer. It's unbelievable
when you think about it. On a Saturday night,
he's on television, broadcast to millions of
people, breaking up a title fight between Tito
Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. Right, this huge, high
-pressure sporting event. And then Monday morning,
he's putting on a uniform. getting in a patrol
car and dealing with domestic disputes, gang
activity, traffic stops on the streets of Los
Angeles. How much do you think that police training
directly translated into his refereeing? Because
when you lay it out like that, it feels like
it's almost the same job, just in a different
environment. It's a one -to -one transfer of
skills. It's foundational. Think about what a
good police officer has to do in a volatile situation.
They call it command presence. Command presence.
Right. You walk into a scene, it's total chaos.
People are yelling. Adrenaline is through the
roof. The officer has to be the calmest, most
in control person there. If the cop panics, the
whole situation explodes. You see that with McCarthy
in the cage, especially in those old crazy fights.
He never, ever looks rattled. He moves deliberately.
He's calm. He's assessing. He's using what they
call the Odea loop in law enforcement, in the
military. Observe, orient, decide, act. He's
constantly scanning the fighters, observing their
body language, orienting himself to the threat
level, deciding if intervention is needed, and
then acting decisively. The decision -making
has to be instantaneous, and the stakes are so
high. Incredibly high. It's the use of force
continuum, but applied to a sport. As a cop,
you learn to escalate your response only to the
level necessary to neutralize a threat, and you
de -escalate the second the threat is gone. That
is precisely the job of an MNA ref. You let them
fight right up until the point one person can
no longer intelligently defend themselves. And
at that exact moment, you intervene with absolute
authority to prevent further harm. His entire
LAPD career was high -stakes threat assessment.
Refereeing a cage fight was just another day
at the office, in a way. That explains why he
was so good at it right out of the gate. And
thank God he was. Because we really need to paint
a picture of what the UFC was like when he first
got there. We see it now. It's on ESPN. It's
sponsored by DraftKings. It's this polished global
product. But in 1994. In 1994, it was basically
a back alley brawl with a TV camera. When McCarthy
refereed his first event, UFC 2. The slogan for
the show was literally, there are no rules. Which
is great for marketing, but absolutely terrifying
from a safety and legal standpoint. It's a liability
disaster class. The original concept wasn't a
sport. It was a spectacle. It was a science experiment.
Can a 400 -pound sumo wrestler beat a 190 -pound
karate master? There were no weight classes.
No gloves. No gloves, no time limits in some
of the early fights. You could fight for 20,
30 minutes straight. And the list of fouls was
short. What was actually illegal back then? Biting
and eye gouging. That was about it. Groin strikes
were perfectly legal. Yeah. Hair pulling was
fine. Fish hooking was allowed. It was designed
to be as brutal as possible. And McCarthy, with
his cop brain, takes one look at this whole circus
and immediately realizes this is not sustainable.
This is where he makes that jump, right? From
just being the guy in the cage to being the architect.
Because another person might have just said,
hey, not my problem. I'm just here to break them
up. Exactly. But he didn't. He intervened. The
sources are clear on this. He went directly to
the UFC management, to Art Davey and Rory and
Gracie, and he essentially gave them a reality
check from a law enforcement perspective. He
laid down the law, so to speak. He literally
did. He told them point blank, look, I'm a cop.
I've seen what aggravated assault looks like.
I know what the law says. And if you keep running
your show like this, someone is going to get
killed in that cage. And when that happens. And
when that happens, he told them, every single
one of you is going to prison. And this whole
thing is over. That must have been a very sobering
conversation for them. It had to be. And that's
where he starts pushing for change. And this,
to me, is his greatest contribution to the sport.
He didn't just enforce the rules someone else
wrote. He was in the room helping to invent them.
Starting with the most fundamental concept of
all, the idea that a fight can be stopped by
the referee. Yes, the technical knockout, the
TKO. This was a revolutionary idea in that context.
In the original Gracie jiu -jitsu philosophy,
which heavily influenced the early UFC, a fight
only ended two ways. Submission, where a man
quits, or knockout, where a man is unconscious.
There's no concept of saving a fighter from himself.
None. It was seen as dishonorable. But McCarthy
argued, from a safety and regulatory standpoint
that if a fighter is on the ground taking unanswered
punches and can no longer intelligently defend
himself, the referee has a moral and legal obligation
to stop the fight. He basically invented the
modern fight stoppage. He was the primary advocate
for it. He saved countless fighters from career
ending and potentially life -altering damage
with that one philosophical shift. And it didn't
stop there. He was pushing for everything, wasn't
he? Everything. Weight classes so you don't have
a 170 -pound guy fighting a 300 -pound guy. Time
limits and rounds so fighters have a chance to
recover. And a standardized expanded list of
fouls. All of that work over many years eventually
led to the creation of the document that governs
all of modern MMA. The unified rules of mixed
martial arts. The unified rules. Yeah. Can we
break that down a bit? Because you hear that
phrase on every broadcast, but I'm not sure everyone
grasps why unified is the most important word
in that title. It's everything. Before the unified
rules were adopted, it was chaos. You'd have
one MMA show in Iowa where knees to the head
of a grounded opponent were legal. And then another
show in Japan where they were illegal, but head
stomps were fine. That was a different sport
depending on where you were. Completely. And
because of that inconsistency, the major state
athletic commissions in the U .S., especially
Nevada and New Jersey, which are the gatekeepers
for big time fighting. The ones that control
Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Exactly. They wouldn't
sanction it. They saw it as too dangerous and
too disorganized. And if you can't get sanctioned,
you can't run shows in major arenas. You can't
get on major television networks. You're stuck
on Native American reservations or in other countries.
You're a fringe sport. You're a fringe sport
forever. McCarthy was one of the key figures
who sat in those rooms with the athletic commissioners
and hashed out a deal. He helped them write a
rule book they could accept. He translated the
chaos of the cage into a language the bureaucrats
and lawyers could understand. So things like
the controversial 12 to 6 elbow rule. That came
out of those meetings. It did. And that's a perfect
example. The 12 to 6 elbow where you can't bring
your elbow straight down in a spiking motion
is a weird rule. Most fighters and fans hate
it. But McCarthy has explained that it was born
out of a compromise. How so? The commissioners
had seen these martial arts demonstrations where
guys break stacks of ice blocks or concrete with
that elbow strike, and they were terrified it
would literally cave someone's skull in. The
physics of it on a human head versus a block
of ice are totally different, but they were spooked.
So McCarthy and the others agreed to ban that
specific motion to get the rest of the rulebook
approved. Exactly. It was a political negotiation.
And he was the perfect ambassador because he
could speak both languages. He could talk to
the fighters about technique and then turn around
and talk to the commissioners about liability
and safety protocols. So it's not an exaggeration
at all to say that without him in those rooms,
we might not have the UFC we have today? I don't
think it's an exaggeration in the slightest.
He gave the sport the legitimacy it needed to
survive. He was the safety advocate inside a
spectacle of violence. And all the while, as
he's building the sport behind the scenes, he's
also building his own personal brand inside the
cage. We talked about the catchphrase, let's
get it on. It just became iconic. It's incredible
branding, whether it was intentional or not.
You know, boxing had Michael Buffer's let's get
ready to rumble. which was very operatic and
grand. Right. Very formal. Very formal. McCarthy's
was the opposite. It was gritty. It was simple.
It was a command. It was the verbal equivalent
of locking the cage door. There's a finality
to it. All the ceremony is done. The fighters
are introduced. The rules are given. And then
he just points at them. And delivers the line.
It became a ritual. We love rituals in sports.
It tells our brains, OK, pay attention now. This
is the moment it all starts. And that ritual,
that brand became so powerful that it bled out
of the sports world and into mainstream pop culture.
This is the really fascinating crossover period.
Because John McCarthy somehow became Hollywood's
official stamp of authenticity for cage fighting.
What do you mean by that, a stamp of authenticity?
Well, think about it from a director's perspective
in the late 90s or early 2000s. You're making
a movie or a TV show, and you have a scene that
involves ultimate fighting. If you just hire
some big actor to play the referee, it's going
to look fake to anyone who actually follows the
sport. The hardcore fans will call it out. Instantly.
But if you get the actual big John McCarthy to
be in your scene, you're buying instant credibility.
His presence tells the audience, we did our homework.
This is the real deal. He anchors the fictional
scene in a very real world. Which is how he ends
up on one of the biggest sitcoms of all time.
Friends. The one with the ultimate fighting champion.
It's a classic. John Favreau's character, the
millionaire Pete Becker, decides he wants to
become the ultimate fighting champion. And when
he steps into the cage for his first brutal,
disastrous fight, who's standing there? Big John
giving him the pre -fight instructions. It's
such a surreal collision of worlds. You have
the cast of Friends, which was the epitome of
safe, mainstream coffee shop television. And
you have the brutal, bloody world of... early
no -holds -barred MMA, and McCarthy's the bridge
connecting them. It legitimized the sport to
a massive audience that probably thought it was
just some underground thuggery. It did. And you
see it again in Entourage, season three. Again,
Entourage was a show that prided itself on its
Hollywood insider authenticity. They used real
actors, real directors, real locations. So when
they did a storyline about a fighter, of course
they had to have the real referee. And then there
was Bully Beatdown on MTV, too. What a show.
Oh, Bully Beatdown, an absolute gem of reality
television hosted by the one and only Jason Mayhem
Miller. For anyone who missed this piece of cultural
history, the concept was simple. A person who
was being bullied would bring their tormentor
onto the show. And the bully would be offered
$10 ,000 to get in a cage and fight a professional
MMA fighter for two rounds. It was basically
a televised humbling. It was a morality play
with takedowns. The bully always comes in arrogant,
thinking their size or street fighting skills
will be enough. And then the bell rings and they
have this horrifying realization that they are.
completely, utterly out of their depth. But that
show could have gone so wrong. You're putting
an untrained civilian in there with a professional
killer. It could have been a snuff film. And
the only reason it wasn't was the referee. And
that referee was Big John. You can watch those
episodes and you see him officiating it differently.
He's watching the bully with this intense focus,
not just for the rules, but for their safety.
He knew exactly when the bully had learned his
lesson. He knew the precise moment to step in
before Mayhem Miller or whoever the pro was did
permanent damage. He brought his professional
expertise and made a potentially criminal concept
into a, well, a semi -safe piece of entertainment.
He also appeared in some films, right? Never
Back Down 2 and a documentary called Fight Life.
Yeah, and Fight Life is a really important one.
It was an award -winning documentary by James
Z. Fang that showed the unglamorous, gritty reality
of what it takes to be a professional fighter.
And featuring McCarthy so prominently in it reinforces
the central theme here. You cannot tell the true
story of mixed martial arts without telling his
story. The two are inseparable. But all stories
have chapters. And a huge chapter in the MMA
story came to a close in 2018. His retirement
from the UFC. He hangs it up. After being the
one constant from UFC 2 all the way to the modern
era, he stepped away from officiating in the
big show. It really was the end of an era. Think
of the champions he'd seen come and go. The rule
changes he'd implemented. The ownership changes.
He was the one piece that was always there. But...
He didn't just, you know, ride off into the sunset.
He pivoted almost immediately into his second
act, which I find just as fascinating as his
first. He became a media member. He joined the
commentary team for Bellator MMA. And we have
to stop and appreciate how difficult that transition
really is. We're used to seeing great fighters
become great commentators. Right, like a Daniel
Cormier or a Michael Bisping. Exactly. And they
bring their experience as a fighter to the booth.
They can say, I know what he's feeling right
now. I've been in that position. McCarthy could
never say that. He was never a pro fighter. So
what was his value? What unique perspective could
a referee bring to the broadcast? He basically
created a new role in MMA commentary. The rules
analyst. It's something you see in the NFL all
the time. There's a controversial pass interference
call. And the broadcast immediately cuts to their
rules expert. usually a former head of officiating
like a Mike Pereira or Dean Blandino. To explain
the minutia of the rulebook, did his foot drag
in bounds? Did he maintain control through the
process of the catch? Precisely. McCarthy brought
that level of granular analysis to MMA. And it's
so desperately needed. The unified rules are
incredibly complex and, frankly, poorly understood
by a lot of fans. What constitutes a 10 -8 round?
Why was that knee illegal? But the next one was
okay. Why did the refs stand them up from the
ground? McCarty can explain the why. He can break
down the mechanics of officiating and judging
in real time. He adds this whole other layer
of education to the broadcast. Instead of just
another voice saying, great right hand, he's
the one saying, notice the referee's position
here. He's moving to a better angle to see if
the fighter's hand is trapped. And that role
has continued for him, even after all the shakeups
in the industry. It has. Bellator was purchased
by the PFL, the Professional Fighters League,
in 2023. That was a seismic shift in the MMA
landscape. And McCarthy survived the merger.
He's still there, now serving as a judging and
rules analyst for the combined PFL and Bellator
events. So he's still shaping how the audience
understands the fight? But he's also shaping
the broader conversation in the sport through
his own platform. His podcast, Weighing In. With
his co -host, former Strikeforce champion and
UFC contender Josh Thompson. The punk Josh Thompson.
And the dynamic between those two is just perfect
for what they do. It's the ultimate insider debate.
The fighter versus the referee. I can imagine
they disagree on just about everything. Constantly.
But it's productive disagreement. Yeah. Thompson
will argue a point from the fighter's perspective.
You know, I was just holding him against the
fence to catch my breath. And McCarthy will immediately
counter from the official's perspective. And
that is the literal definition of timidity, which
is why you got a warning. So the listener gets
both sides of the coin. You get the full 360
degree view of why things happen the way they
do in a fight. And the other thing the podcast
did, it unleashed him. For his entire career
as a referee, he had to be neutral. He had to
be impartial. He couldn't publicly criticize
a judge's scorecard. He couldn't say he thought
a fighter's performance was boring. He had to
be the silent authority figure. Now the muzzle
is off. He's incredibly opinionated. He will
call out specific judges by name for what he
sees as incompetent scoring. He'll critique other
referees for bad stoppages. He'll criticize matchmaking.
and promotion. It must be incredibly liberating
for him after more than two decades of having
to bite his tongue. I think so. He's moved into
that elder statesman phase of his career. He
has nothing left to prove. He's seen it all.
So now he can just speak his mind. And because
he's Big John McCarthy, because his credibility
is unimpeachable, when he speaks, people in the
sport listen. His opinion carries immense weight.
Let's talk a bit about the official recognition
he's gotten, because refereeing is, by its nature,
a thankless job. It's the definition of a thankless
job. If you have a perfect night, nobody even
knows your name. If you make one mistake, a billion
-dollar industry and millions of fans are calling
for your head. But McCarthy was different. He
was so good and so synonymous with the sport
that the industry had to acknowledge him. They
did. He was inducted into the Martial Arts History
Museum Hall of Fame back in 2010. So that's really
early. That's even before the sport's massive
FOX television deal. It is. And then at the World
MMA Awards, which are like the Oscars of the
sport, he won referee of the year three years
in a row. Three times consecutively. 2015, 2016,
and 2017. Right at the end of his UFC run. It
was basically the industry giving him a standing
ovation on his way out the door. He was the fans
in his peers saying, we see you. We know you're
the gold standard. And he also put his story
down on paper, cementing his own legacy. He's
an author. He is. The book is called Let's Get
It On. The making of MMA and its ultimate referee
came out in 2011. Is it a must read for fans
of the sport? 100%. Because it's not just his
autobiography. His life story is the story of
the birth of modern MMA. You can't separate the
two. He was there for every critical moment,
from the Gracie family's initial vision to the
Zufa buyout to the sport's global expansion.
To read his book is to read the secret history
of the UFC. Speaking of history and legacy, I
was really surprised and interested to learn
that this is kind of becoming a McCarthy family
business. It is. The legacy is continuing into
the next generation. The sources say he has three
kids, two sons and a daughter, and his daughter
has been a licensed MMA judge since 2013. That
is amazing. So there is still a McCarthy's name
on official scorecards at fights. There is. And
think about the education she must have had.
It shows you how deeply ingrained the sport and
its rules are in that family. It wasn't just
dad's job. It was the family trade. Imagine the
conversations around that dinner table breaking
down fights. I'm just picturing a holiday dinner.
Can you pass the gravy? And by the way, that
third round was a clear 10 -8, and here's why.
I'm sure it gets intense. But it's amazing. It
speaks to a deep respect for the craft of officiating
and judging and for the integrity of the sport
itself. So where is he now? He's not still in
L .A., is he? No, he's left California. The source
material notes that he currently lives in Tennessee.
A bit of a quieter life, I'd imagine. Well, maybe
quieter between gigs. But with the PFL's busy
schedule, his weekly podcast and other media
appearances, I doubt the man is sitting still
very often. He's still one of the most important
voices in the sport. So as we start to wrap this
up and look back at this incredible career, I
mean, from an LAPD cop who manhandled the promoter
to the guy writing the rule book to the voice
of analysis on PFL broadcasts, what is the ultimate
takeaway? Why is John McCarthy so important?
I think the best way to put it is that he was
the conscience of the cage. The conscience of
the cage. I like that. Unpack that for me. Look
at the ecosystem of a fight. The promoter's job
is to sell tickets and create drama. They want
knockouts. They want blood. The fighter's job
is to win, often by any means necessary. The
coach's job is to get their fighter the win.
Everyone has an agenda. Right. The referee is
the only person in that entire equation whose
sole primary job is the health and safety of
the human beings inside the cage. He's the check
and balance on the entire system. He was the
guardrail. He was the guardrail. He took a spectacle
that a very powerful U .S. Senator, John McCain,
famously called human cockfighting, and he helped
civilize it. He built the legal and structural
framework that allowed it to survive political
attacks and become the multibillion dollar global
sport it is today. Without his relentless push
for safety and rules, the UFC likely would have
been regulated out of existence in the late 90s.
So every time we tune into a fight on a Saturday
night, we are in a very real sense watching it
in the house that Big John helped build. Without
a doubt, his fingerprints are on every aspect
of the modern game. You know, that brings me
to a final thought I want to leave with our listeners,
a sort of provocative question to chew on. We've
established this narrative. Here's this man who
literally helped write the unified rules. He
then enforced those rules inside the cage at
the highest level for over two decades. And now
he sits in the commentary booth and serves as
the chief public critic of how those same rules
are interpreted and applied. So think about the
immense pressure that puts on the referees working
today. You're in there. You've got a split second
to decide whether to stop a fight or let it continue.
And you know that in the back of your mind, the
guy who basically invented your job is upstairs,
on a live microphone, ready to tell millions
of people if you got it wrong. It's the shadow
of the giant. How can you not feel that? Exactly.
So my question is, does that pressure make today's
referees better? Or does it make them hesitant?
Does it make them second guess their instincts
because they're afraid of being criticized by
the master himself? The standard he said is so
high, it might actually be impossible to live
up to. That's a great question. I mean, iron
sharpens iron, right? If you want to be the best,
you have to be able to perform under the watchful
eye of the person who defined what the best even
means in your field. And he is always watching.
Always. Well, thank you for joining us on this
deep dive into the life and legacy of John McCarthy.
We hope you learned something new about the man
who was so much more than just the third man
in the cage. Fight smart. We'll see you next
time.