« Floyd Mayweather jobs to the IRS | Home | Sengoku 9/23 Saitama Community Arena »
One way to look at NSAC’s response to Big John McCarthy: Go away, you mark
By Zach Arnold | September 23, 2009
Ah, the classic “don’t call us, we’ll call you” blow off.
Jake Rossen at ESPN has long been following Big John McCarthy’s attempt to get into MMA (so has Fightlinker). McCarthy filled out an application to become a referee in Nevada again.
Keith Kizer, head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, reportedly sent McCarthy a form letter back in the negative.
In a mailed letter from Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, McCarthy, who submitted his application Sept. 10, was informed that the state “[does] not anticipate adding any additional referees at this time. We will place your application in the pending file in case the situation changes.”
In theory, an athletic commission’s job is to ensure safety and regulation in the sport they oversee, plus deal with any contractual and financial obligations that arise. (See: IRS asking the NSAC to withhold money for Floyd Mayweather’s tax problems.) Therefore, can Keith Kizer truly say with a straight face that the current referees he uses do a better job of ensuring fighter safety than Big John McCarthy? The answer is an emphatic no.
In the court of public opinion, Kizer’s actions as commissioner vary from the low end of the spectrum (being a lightweight) to neutral (maintaining status quo). Kizer’s track record has plenty of spots: from the on-again, off-again vaunted off-season drug testing program in MMA (Nevada hasn’t caught one fighter and yet California has been more successful) to a batten-down-the-hatches stance when the Antonio Margarito situation blew up in California over how many fights Margarito used illegal hand wraps in, to the varying degrees of suspensions based on what drugs fighters are caught using, and it’s hard to imagine in my opinion that the commissioner wouldn’t get a ‘no confidence‘ vote if a straw poll amongst various MMA power brokers (outside of promoters).
In a time where there has been turmoil amongst various state athletic commissions, Kizer and Nevada have not really stood out ahead of the pack in terms of being consistently progressive or ahead of the curve in relation to boxing or Mixed Martial Arts. It was New Jersey who brought up the use of instant replay well before Nevada.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Good for Keith Kizer in this case. Big John has been making a fool of himself since he “retired” from officiating. He can’t keep his mouth shut about officiating, promoters and had that stupid idea of adding a bunch of weight classes.
Big John’s been around forever. He did a lot of great things for MMA and refereeing. But at the end of his run he had a bunch of spotty stoppages himself. Randy/Chuck III is one of them. Randy slipped on an ad and John stopped it while Randy was blocking punches. I think the Big John is a great referee argument doesn’t hold water. He probably is better than Mirgliota and anyone is better than the awful female judge they have in Nevada.
But you can’t blame Kizer for not letting him back in. It is a privilege and not a right. Big John thought he’d leave reffing, make money being an announcer and a big shot and it didn’t work. Tough titties.
Yes, that’s right. John McCarthy did nothing to help legitimize your favorite sport for over 10 years before you even knew what it was. It was all done personally by Dana White when he personally wrote up MMA rules and gave them to New Jersey’s athletic commission to use. He said a naughty thing about Zuffa, that McCarthy should get McCarthy-style blacklisted for life. UFC! UFC! UFC! UFC! UFC! UFC! UFC!
The John McCarthy incident gives a fascinating look into Danaite logic (or lack thereof.) Here it is in a nutshell:
“A man who bashes his employees for not going along with his rule clearly has their best interests in mind and would do nothing to hamper their careers if they pissed him off (which is easy to do.) But a guy who gave 13 years of great service to the sport, gave his personal opinions on who is going to win a fight while he had nothing to do with officiating…..OH MY GOD! STOP THAT MONSTER BEFORE HE TURNS INTO TIM DONAGHY! NO REF HAS EVER HAD AN OPINION ON WHO WAS GOING TO WIN A FIGHT! HE’S TAINTED!
This is both sad and hilarious at the same time. Sad because the sport is so corrupt even at the commission level. Anyone that doubts this needs to seriously consider their perspective. Hilarious in that fanboys are so delusional, they have no clue as to the implications of this kind of fraudulent activity that the NSAC is guilty of here.
Dana’s line that the UFC don’t have anything to do with what the commission says or does is true on the surface. Just as the yakuza have nothing to do with business dealings in Japan is true – on the surface. Money and power work much more effectivey behind the scenes than legislations, laws and provisions, press releases and public statements do on the record.
McCarthy knows the game. My goodness that’s partly why he left to begin with but to go public with ‘rumors and accusations’ is a death wish for his career.
How dare you John McCarthy, try to go out and make a good living for your family simply because you’re know for being one of the best officialsin the business. Men like you are only entitle to make an honest small fry income being a dignitary for the fat cats. – Complete and consuming idiocy. Good luck with that free health, fool.
People need to stop turning a blind eye to the fact that BJM made comments about fighters during his fight network stint that impartial officials simply cannot make and still maintain their impartiaility. This issue is not as black and white as it is being portrayed.
I think you guys are off the mark a bit. I don’t see this being about UFC. Big John went over the commissions head with his reccomendations for new rules. He also owns a fight gym that has fighters competing on shows. He really shouldn’t be offficiating at that point.
He gave great service in the role of ref. I already said that. Why is he going back to it now? Refs barely make any money? If he is looking to ref again to get back in the public eye then Kizer can make him eat crow. If he wants to give up the extra curricular stuff I’m sure he cN return one day. There are reppurcutions in life. If you leave your job and talk bad about the people you work for they probably won’t hire you back. Even if you were employee of the decade once.
You mean that you guys don’t believe Kizer’s explanation that they simply have an excess of licensed refs?
What’s the over/under in terms of time until Keith Kizer is sitting in some cushy executive role with Zuffa? 2 years? 3 years?
Wow – I want to work where some of you guys do. If I quit my job, called my boss and his customers assholes and then failed at my next career, it’d be great if I could just come back and have them fire my replacement in order to give me my job back!
Mc Carthy had his share of mess ups, see Bustamnete-Lindland, Brian Johnston, Hughes-Newton, Sakuraba etc.
Mc Carthy chose to leave.
Mc Carthy chose to do commentary and open a school and a fight team.
Mc Carthy chose to blast the athletic commissions and criticize other referees.
He made his own bed.
PS-Mc Carthy didnt write the original unified rules, see Nick Lembo of NJ and Jeff Blatnick of the old UFC MMAC.
http://boxing.nv.gov/New_ROfficInsp.htm
lol@Tico going back in the past decade to look for errors. Why didn’t they pull his license in 2003 then?
It’s not just a referee. It’s a referee that all referees followed. If McCarthy never came into the UFC, if they got stuck with that referee that wanted to know if a flying tooth counted as a TKO, MMA might be a different landscape.
McCarthy was the one out there pushing for legislation while Lorenzo Fertitta and Marc Ratner were saying it was too disgusting to ever be allowed in Nevada.
I didn’t say he did, I was mocking the Zuffa myth that Dana did. But McCarthy was testifying anywhere that would listen (not just in NJ) to help put a humane face on it while one of its current owners was trying to drive the price down by keeping it out of Nevada so he could buy it as cheaply as possible.
Yves Lavigne does a way better job at protecting fighters than John McCarthy. Heck, he never lets them even get hurt enough to warrant a legitimate stoppage.
Not shocking. The CA & NV athletic commissions are bought and paid for. Kizer will definitely be getting a sweet job at Zuffa or Station Casinos when his days are up at the NSAC. Just like Ratner got on at Zuffa, and Armando Garcia went from the CSAC to Station Casinos.
I said it before and I will say it again…. As soon as he started voicing his opinion on fighters and the sport, and lost all credibility as a big time referee. If he wanted to be a commentator, good for him. But you can’t do both. Being impartial, or at least the perception of being impartial, is the biggest quality trait required of an ref. He lost that perception a long time ago.
Armando Garcia is at Station Casinos now? Any source for that?
As for McCarthy, he was one of the guys who made the sport what it is today. That doesn’t guarantee him a position for life. I think they could bring him back and ignore everything he did after he resigned his position. But they aren’t obligated to take him back, and they have perfectly valid reasons to deny him.
Hell, I wouldn’t take him back, even though they definitely have a reffing problem. Impartiality is the single most important quality of a referee, and McCarthy threw away his impartiality a while ago.
He’s working for Station Casinos security. It’s there to be googled.
“When California first legalized MMA, Armando Garcia, was the Commissioner that would preside in the early years of the growing sport. He was a controversial figure, often criticized for his debatable rulings and treatment of fledgling shows. In fact there were multi-million dollar lawsuits filed against him that blamed him for destroying their productions. EliteXC and many other shows were publicly critical of his constant meddling.
Then as quickly as he appeared he was gone. According to inside sources, Armando had developed a relationship with an assistant at the commission and when the relationship soured there was talk of a sexual hassasment lawsuit. It is still unclear if the CSAC has quietly settled the suit. What is clear is that Armando resigned in a hurried manner and unceremoniously left for greener pastures.
According to one CSAC official, “we’re still cleaning up the mess Armando left us”.
So what became of our colorful Commissioner? Well after seeing him 2nd row at a recent WEC we became a bit curious until we found him. Armando Garcia is now head of security at the Boulder Station Casino in Las Vegas, officially working for the Fertittas in Nevada.”
Source is GracieFighter.com
Thats. . . odd.
Doesn’t make sense to me. Garcia was a fuckup, and I thought Zuffa was pissed at him.
Maybe they gave him a job to get him to step down?
I’d like to know what his qualifications are to be head of security. I wouldn’t hire to him to housesit my cat.
I don’t have any proof Zuffa was behind this, and I’m not saying they were. Since McCarthy took shots at Kizer that’s probably enough for the vendetta. But UFC does have a very incestuous relationship with Nevada’s commission. Lorenzo Fertitta and Ratner were high ranking members, Ratner as late as 2006 so he has a relationship with the majority of its current members.
Every athletic commission has come under charges of favoring certain promoters or granting favors that look suspicious. So anything done that favors their top cash cow is going to raise eyebrows.
Why would anyone buy this: http://shop.tapout.com/index.cfm?fa=Shop.detail&productId=5982&selectPID=7977
(Sorry, I know this post doesn’t necessarily belong here.)
You plan on going as Stitch this Halloween?
Any of you people talking about the non stop vile and horrible things BJM said about commissions and the UFC – I’d love to hear some quotes! Because I’ve looked for them, and haven’t been able to find much past a few very tame generalities.
@Fightlinker: Who cares what he said. He quit. If you want a job, you don’t quit it.
Let me make this topical for you:
When you got quit that job at Tim Horton’s to do Fightlinker full time, what happened when you came crawling back, broke and weeping, begging for your job? I’m gonna guess two things:
a) Your old boss got the best BJ of his life,
b) You still didn’t get your job.
Who’s gonna fire the people working for them in order to take back some guy that told you to take this job and shove it?
[…] to fluyid over in the FightOpinion comments for the find!) No […]
@Fightlinker: He didn’t say anything that bad. He said he would recommend Nevada retool their judging system because most of the judges were from boxing and had no clue what to look for when a fight went to the ground because all they understood was stand up. But people on power trips don’t like being told they’re wrong so of course this didn’t sit well with Kizer. And the funny thing is Dana White has been saying the same thing for years. But the difference is Dana White makes them money, John McCarthy does not.
From BJM’s Sherdog interview:
And on the 45Huddle of Yahoo, Kevin Iole, trashing him:
[…] fights in Nevada (due to the hand-wrap controversy), to the situation regarding his long-standing stand-off with Big John McCarthy, and to the situation regarding urine tests being an acceptable and accurate standard for drug […]