DC tells Jon Jones to ‘nut up’ about referee

‘Big’ John McCarthy is the dean of MMA referees, and on everyone’s short list of best of, or simply best. All but one anyway – UFC light heavyweight interim champion Jon Jones. Jones is in the biggest fight of his career at UFC 200 vs. UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, and the Nevada State Athletic Commission has appointed McCarthy as the referee.

Tuesday afternoon Jones said, “I would prefer any other referee but him.” Jones offered no detail on his issues with the ref beyond a reference to believing the ‘energy’ between the two is off. Jones hopes McCarthy will decline the offer to ref the biggest fight at what is believed will be the biggest event in mixed martial arts history.

Cormier too has a history of displeasure with refs. Before their second fight at UFC 197, Cormier filed a formal request that Herb Dean not be the ref, believing Dean allowed Jones too much time pressing Cormier against the fence in the fifth and final round of their first fight. The ref ended up being Herb Dean.

Cormier appeared recently on the new UFC Unfiltered podcast with Matt Serra and Jim Norton, and offered his perspective.

“I think John McCarthy is a guy that is a great referee,” said Cormier, as transcribe by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “He’s a guy that he’s kind of in the fight. You feel like there’s a third guy. Herb will get out of the way. In some instances you need a ref that will just stay out of the way, he’s just there to protect you. But John does interject himself into the fight some with the open hands and certain things that Jones kind of does consistently. So I guess that may be where his complaints come from but I’m not exactly sure.”

“I’m fine with John McCarthy. I would have been fine with Herb Dean again because as a man when I said that about Herb Dean on a conference call, I will tell you I didn’t know that was going out audio to everybody. I thought it was just me talking to the commission. But afterwards…I felt the need to reach out and say, ‘If I have a gripe I should be able to tell it to you.’ So I ended up talking to Herb Dean and he was gonna get one of the commissioners on the phone so that we could discuss everything, so that he could hear my complaint.

“Every referee has something that they do that someone will not agree with…Look April 23rd, if Herb Dean would have been the official I would’ve had to just nut up and deal with it. And that is exactly what Jones is gonna have to do on July 9.”

Daniel Cormier fights Jon Jones for the undisputed UFC light heavyweight championship in the main event of UFC 200 on July 9, in Las Vegas, Nevada.