‘Big’ John McCarthy spoke with referee Jason Herzog following his main event stoppage at UFC Nashville.
The UFC’s knockout king reigned supreme last weekend as Derrick Lewis quickly TKO’ed 6’7″ heavyweight Tallison Teixeira in 35 seconds for his 16th KO win in the Octagon.
The UFC Nashville main event ended with much celebration, but not without controversy as some argued it was a premature stoppage by the referee as Teixeira stood back up.
UFC commentator Daniel Cormier refuted the ‘early stoppage’ claims, saying Teixeira illegally used the cage to pull himself back up after he was knocked down by Lewis.
Days removed from the fight, referee Jason Herzog has reflected on his decision to stop Lewis vs. Teixeira.
John McCarthy says Jason Herzog told him main event stoppage was ‘a little bit early’
On the Weighing In Podcast, legendary MMA referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy says he had a phone call with Jason Herzog following the main event, getting his thoughts on the stoppage.
“He goes, John, when he got hit, he went down,” McCarthy said.
“[Herzog] goes, I saw him trying to move. I was looking at the shots that that Lewis was throwing. I saw that a couple of them missed. Then, I saw that there was one that was decent, then there was a huge one. Then, he made a sound off of it and it was one of those that’s like, oh, I’ve gotta really think about stopping this.
“He says, and I started to come in, and that’s about the time he’s climbing the fence, and I thought [Teixeira] was more hurt than he actually was.
“He goes, so I would say it was a little bit early because I have to change what I’m doing. I have to look at it,” McCarthy said of his conversation with Herzog.
“And we talked about it and stuff, and this is what happens. You are responsible for someone’s health and safety, and sometimes it’s hard to let things go. But you gotta do it because you gotta give, although Teixeira has not done a lot in the UFC, he’s got the ability to be that main event fighter, taking on Derrick Lewis.
“He’s worked himself to that based upon his couple of wins there in the UFC, and you gotta give him that opportunity.”
McCarthy also said Herzog was worried about seeing Lewis leave Teixeira completely unconscious.
John McCarthy talks Tallison Teixeira illegally grabbing the cage
A veteran referee since the early days of UFC, McCarthy says Herzog could’ve taken a couple of points from Teixeira for illegally grabbing the cage to get up.
However, Lewis was hunting for the finish at that time, making that difficult to do.
“He could’ve stopped the action, taken a point, maybe two points based upon that grab, it saved you because you weren’t getting up off of the ground,” McCarthy said.
“Could be one point, could be two because he says it was intentional that he did it, and he would have put him straight back down in that position on the ground with Derrick Lewis on top of him, and you restart the fight.
“But you’re in this position where you have Derrick Lewis who has hurt somebody, you don’t wanna take away that opportunity.
“That’s not fair to Derrick either because if the guy cheated, he fouled to get himself out of that position,” McCarthy added.
