Big Refs John McCarthy & Herb Dean Talk Ups and Downs of Reffing MMA

“I got hurt in July. I hurt my neck really bad and ended up having a couple of operations and I was not the same,” McCarthy explained. “The injury degraded me to where I even had a hard time lifting my arm up. So I ended up getting the operations and I pulled myself out of officiating fights, walked away for a couple of months basically, and my first fight back was the New York show on Nov. 4 for the UFC. I learned something off of that injury and what I had to go through. If you’re not healthy, you can’t do this.

“I don’t want to do it when somebody else can do it better. I wanted to be able to walk away on my terms at the right time, feeling that I’m sitting on top of the heap right now and there’s only one direction for go in officiating. With commentating, it’s new. I love the people at Bellator that I get to work with. I get to work with Mike Goldberg, Mauro Ranallo, and it was an opportunity when I looked at it, it was going to be hard for me to pass up. Yeah, I’m stepping away from something I love and I won’t be a part of the big fights that I was doing for other promotions, but you can’t have it all. When I looked at the big picture, this was the right thing for me to do.”

https://www.mmaweekly.com/big-john-mccarthy-explains-why-hes-moving-from-refereeing-to-the-bellator-broadcast-booth