BJM: High punishment too harsh, a bigger star wouldn’t receive same
John McCarthy: “That’s gonna hurt him, he’s gonna feel it, but I think that overall Jason got treated very harshly for what happened.”
Last week Jason High was released by the UFC and suspended one year by the NM Athletic Commission for pushing referee Kevin Mulhall after his fight at UFN 42.
Veteran referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy recently spoke to Submission Radio about the situation, calling the punishment too harsh for what happened:
“Absolutely there has to be varying degrees of punishment, but it has to be a punishment that is, you know, it evenly matches the crime, and the crime was pretty minimal. Jason put his hands on Kevin and kinda pushed him away. It was wrong. To be taken out of the UFC – I understand what Dana White is doing… Now the question is, if Jon Jones would have done the same thing, would he have kicked Jon Jones out of the UFC? He wouldn’t have. Now on top of, you know Dana removing him from the UFC, the New Mexico State Athletic commission has, you know suspended him for 1 year. That’s one year of time that he cannot make a living fighting. That’s a lot. You know, you’re having people take away your ability to make a living, based on one act. Sometimes we as human beings, we do things off of emotion that we normally wouldn’t do. Do I think he should have been punished? Yes. He should have had his hand slapped, he should have gotten, you know a five month suspension, he should have been fined, we’ll say twenty-five hundred, five thousand dollars. That’s gonna hurt him, he’s gonna feel it, but I think that overall Jason got treated very harshly for what happened.”
