From BJM’s Sherdog interview:

Sherdog: And what about criticizing Keith Kizer?

McCarthy: I never said anything bad about Keith Kizer. I personally don’t have any kind of issue with Keith Kizer at all. He is the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. It is probably the most powerful athletic commission because of the Vegas area and the huge world championship fights that happen there. They may not do as many fights as some other commissions, but when it comes to the biggest fights, they’re usually in Vegas.

I had a criticism toward people being put into place as far as officiating. You listen to what Dana White was talking about the other night. His real problem now is judging and reffing in MMA. We’re looking at things the same way. I have a problem when you have an official who is put into place to have an impact on the sport I love when they don’t understand the sport, when they don’t understand what the fighters are doing. They understand someone getting hit in the face. They don’t understand the manipulations of the ground game and who is winning the fight. I probably should’ve shut my mouth because I’ve got a big mouth, and it’s got me in a lot of trouble, but it’s the truth. I want everyone to understand what is really happening in the sport so they can make educated decisions and judgments.

And on the 45Huddle of Yahoo, Kevin Iole, trashing him:

Sherdog: Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports had an article up that had some interesting things to say about you. I am going to read this to you and would love to hear you comment on it:

“As far as the UFC goes, it will be up to the various state athletic commissions to appoint him. However, John has created some issues. He created conflict-of-interest possibilities with some very pointed and negative comments about the UFC while he was a TV analyst. Also, he has numerous fighters who work out at his Southern California gym; he could never work any of those fighters’ bouts. And a little birdie tells me Nevada Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer, one of the sport’s most influential regulators, is none too pleased with McCarthy these days for criticisms McCarthy delivered of him. It’s not to say that it’s impossible, but he’s got a long road ahead of him.”

McCarthy: First off, everything Kevin’s writing is his input, and most of that is bull. I never criticized the UFC — that’s a lie. If you’re going to talk about while I was broadcasting, did I say something wasn’t a good fight? Yeah, but I never said the UFC is bad; I don’t do that. I spent too many years building up the UFC, getting people to love the UFC. It would serve me no purpose in saying bad things about something I actually care a lot about. Bring out what I did: Was it a blog I wrote? Is it something you have tape of me saying, like “The UFC is bad”?

Everything can’t be complimentary about everything they do. There’s obviously going to be things I don’t agree with, personally, that they do. It doesn’t mean I’m right; it just means it goes against the way I think it should be done. When it comes to me having fighters out of my gym, if I have 10 fighters out of my gym, I go to the [athletic commission] if that fighter is actually even going to be in a show that I do, and I tell them, “I have this person, he works out at my gym, please excuse me from that fight.” How many fights could that really happen in? Not that many, so it’s really not that big of an issue at all. There’s been many times I’ve gone to commissions and said I’ve done this with this fighter before, and they make the decision to put me in that match or not.

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?

(Sorry, I know this post doesn’t necessarily belong here.)

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.

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?