John McCarthy is not a fan of the way Justin Brown handled the Eddie Alvarez DQ against Iuri Lapicus at ONE on TNT 1 last week.
Alvarez took Lapicus down and started landing heavy ground and pound. When he did that Lapicus was turning his head and a few shots landed on the back of his head. Although there was no hard warning, the ref DQ’d Alvarez which McCarthy says shouldn’t have happened.
“You guys need to understand, you have a responsibility to a lot more than your understanding,” he said on his video podcast “Weighing In” with retired fighter Josh Thomson (via MMAFighting). “You have a responsibility to those fighters. You have a responsibility to the promotion, and you have a responsibility to the fans of MMA and the sport of MMA that you’re going to do something that’s reasonable within what you can do.
“Just to take a championship fight and throw up a red card or to disqualify somebody, you’re not using your brain,” McCarthy continued. “You’re not being reasonable, and you’re not thinking of the full context of what you have.”
According to McCarthy, the ref should’ve been heard saying watch the back of the head. However, the longtime official believes the way Alvarez was throwing his punches shows he was trying to hit his ear, but due to Lapicus turning his head, that is why he got DQ’d.
“In this situation, Eddie is looping shots from the side,” McCarthy continued. “Directed means you’re coming straight at it. When a fighter is looping a shot, it’s telling you that he’s trying to hit the ear, so he’s hitting the head and hitting the ear, because that’s why he’s looping that shot, and if his opponent starts to turn their head, then if the opponent turns the head and Eddie hits that spot, you tell them, ‘Watch the back of the head.’
“What I’m telling you is, you just struck the back of the head, but it’s on your opponent because he turned his head into it, which caused it, but I need you at this moment to redirect to either another target or use another weapon so you can continue on with your attack.”
