John McCarthy explains his Mount Rushmore

John McCarthy knows more about mixed martial arts than arguably anyone. In a recent appearance on MMA Junkie Radio, “Big” John offered his Mount Rushmore:
•Royce Gracie
•Ronda Rousey
•Randy Couture
•Fedor Emelianenko

And he explained the reasoning behind his choices.

Royce Gracie

I agree totally with Dana in his one of Royce Gracie, said McCarthy. You can’t have a Mount Rushmore without the guy that made people go, ‘Whoa, who is that guy? What is he doing?’ Because back then, I was maybe one of 100-120 students of Gracie jiu-jitsu and everyone back then, it was all about kicking and punching, standup fighting – that was it. If you were a grappler, you were an idiot. So what Royce did in winning the first couple of UFCs is he changed the martial arts world.

Ronda Rousey

If I was going to put a female fighter, I have to put the female fighter that changed the sport. Who was it that all of a sudden made it to where people were interested in women’s fighting? You can put Gina Carano. Gina was absolutely responsible for people starting to tune into female fighting and if you take it one step further, who made it cool to be a female fighter? Who made it mainstream for women? Who made it to where everyone wanted to put their eyes on it? It’s Ronda Rousey. You cannot like her, you cannot like the way she ended her career or whatever – it doesn’t matter. She changed the sport of MMA for women fighters, so that’s what I look at.

Randy Couture

He changed the sport as far as he was the first guy to bring in game planning. He was the one to bring in the entire package. The cardio like Frank Shamrock did and the game planning and everything, but the difference between Frank and Randy is that Randy went and won the heavyweight championship. He won the light heavyweight championship and he won those multiple times. It was his progression in the sport and again, a person that started to bring the attention of mainstream onto our sport.

Fedor Emelianenko

Based upon the fact that he was so good for so long, so unbeaten for so long and in a different promotion in PRIDE, he created a system of fighting. Mark Coleman is the guy we give credit to as the godfather of ground and pound. Fedor was the one that perfected it. He was the one that learned how to hit not only just shots, but heavy shots that damaged the opponent and made them have to quit.