“Big” John McCarthy served as referee for Friday night’s Kimbo Slice-Dada 5000 fight at Bellator 149. You may have noticed a puzzled look on his face during the fight, and the veteran referee recently explained this thoughts on the bout to MMAFighting.
“I honestly thought it would be over within the first round,” McCarthy told MMAFighting. “And you know, when we got to the end of the first round, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this thing’s going to go all three rounds.’
“I always tell them, ‘I’m going to stand you up unless you do something.’ I’m telling Kimbo, ‘Kimbo, do something.’ And he’s just tired. He’s not trying to punch, he’s not trying to go for a submission, he’s just trying to catch breath and let time go by.”
This was just the second time in McCarthy’s career he has called for a standup from a full mount. The other was at UFC 17 in 1998, when Jeremy Horn did nothing with a dominant position against Frank Shamrock.
“[Jeremy] gets full mount, and he just sits there, and Frank is underneath just holding on, and he’s not doing anything. I said, ‘C’mon Jeremy, you’ve got to work,'” McCarthy continued. “And it goes for about a minute and a half, and I said, ‘Jeremy, you have got to do something or I’m going to stand you up.’ And he doesn’t. So I stop and stand them up.
“I went to the back afterwards, I said, “What in the f— were you thinking? Did you not hear me? He goes ‘Oh yeah John, I heard every word.’ I said, ‘What were you thinking?’ He goes. ‘Honestly?’ and I said, ‘No I want you to lie, Jeremy.’ And he said ‘Honestly, John, holy s—, I’m mounted on Frank Shamrock and I don’t want him to do anything to me.’ I went, ‘That’s all I needed to know, man.'”
Related: Report: Dada 5000’s Heart Stopped After Loss To Kimbo Slice
