“Big” John McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the best judges in all of MMA. When he speaks fans and fighters tend to listen to his words and take them as gospel, especially when it comes to commission activities like referring or judging.
So when he came out after the Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan 2 bout saying he had “no idea” how the judges scored the first round for Sterling, fans hung on to those words to further their cries of robbery.
Now, he’s admitting a big mistake and backtracking on his original words.
“Here’s the first thing, and Aljamain Sterling can hate me, again, I honestly don’t care, but I will tell you, I don’t hate him,” McCarthy told MMA Junkie Radio. “I think he’s a phenomenal fighter. I think he’s just a dynamite fighter and he deserves to be where he’s at. But when you take a look at judging of a fight, I did exactly what you should never do, and that’s have friends over, be jaw-jackin’ with them while the fight’s going on, and then think that you saw that fight as you should have. I didn’t.”
Those initial words rubbed Sterling wrong who called him an idiot for his comments.
“I went back and watched it and said I can definitely see why someone would say Aljamain won that,” McCarthy said. “If you’re going for volume, you’re gonna go more for Aljamain. If you’re going more for power, you’re gonna go more for Yan, but it’s razor-close. And you know, I was wrong.”
John McCarthy admits ‘mistake’ in judging Sterling vs. Yan 2 ‘I was wrong’