Of all the fights John McCarthy has officiated, one particular knockout courtesy of Michael Page left the biggest impression on him.
McCarthy, who has refereed some of the biggest fights in both the UFC and Bellator, says Page’s flying knee knockout of Evangelista Santos was the loudest one he’s ever heard.
Page (20-1 MMA, 16-1 BMMA) flattened Santos in the second round at Bellator 158 in July 2016 and left “Cyborg” with a dented forehead and cracked skull, which required surgery.
“Honest to God, that was the hardest,” McCarthy told MMA Junkie Radio. “I try to tell people, if you’ve ever been to batting practice and you’ve ever heard guys that can really hit, if you go to batting practice and you saw the old-time guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds, and you hear the crack of the bat when they hit the ball and it’s going out of the park, it was that loud.
“When he went down, I realized as soon as he got hit, I could see he turned and he was actually bracing himself when he went down which is telling me he’s not out. But then I see his feet kicking and I said, ‘OK, that’s it, we’re over.’ And when I turned him over, you’re used to seeing lumps and bumps in MMA. That’s just part of the game. We’re not used to seeing dents, indentations, and that’s what I was looking at. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, he broke the front part of his skull with that knee.’”
Page returns to action in Friday’s Bellator 281 main event when he takes on Logan Storley for the interim welterweight title at OVO Arena Wembley in London. The main card airs on Showtime following prelims on MMA Junkie.
John McCarthy: Michael Page’s flying knee KO of Evangelista Santos loudest strike I’ve ever heard
