Ref Mark Matheny bodyguards, hunts rattlesnakes

56-year-old Newark, Ohio resident Mark Matheny is one of the country’s more respected — and, consequently, busiest — referees in mixed martial arts.

Whenever Matt Hughes wins on one of the Xbox UFC video games, it’s Matheny raising his hand.

Matheny’s wife, Kristin, is a timekeeper at many of the local events. It’s probably the only chance she gets to see him.

“I probably work 40 weekends a year (in the cage),” Matheny said. “Sometimes I say I’m going to stop, but it’s too much fun.

“You’re not supposed to fraternize with the fighters, but I’ve reffed every one of them. I’m the old guy.”

The biggest challenge for referees is deciding when to stop a fight. Matheny’s hands-off approach has earned him more fans than critics.

UFC commentator Joe Rogan made it clear on which side he falls during a Q&A at mmafighting.com.

“There are great referees and then there are not so great referees,” Rogan said. “We have problems sometimes with referees in states without as many shows, but then again there are referees like Mark Matheny in Ohio who’s a great referee.

“He’s a local guy who lets the fighters fight and stops fights at the right time. But then there are other refs who talk to the fighters too much, who are too trigger-happy.

“There are some good referees but then there are terrible calls like in Elite XC, when Roy Nelson had Andrei Arlovski in side control, and the ref stood them up. The only reason a ref should stand guys up is if nothing is happening.”

Matheny was commended for the way he handled the bantamweight title bout between Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey at the Strikeforce show in Columbus earlier this month. Rousey improved to 5-0, submitting Tate with an arm bar.

Some refs might have stopped the fight after Rousey grabbed Tate’s left arm and straightened it out, severely compromising Tate’s elbow. But Matheny let the fight continue and Rousey kept the hold until Tate submitted at 4:27 of the first round.

“I was impressed, not just with their beauty, but their talent,” Matheny said. “They came out throwing bombs. I’m not going to stop a fight too soon. They’re pros. Don’t put it on me.

“I don’t want a fighter telling his buddies he was ready to open a can of whoopass when Mark Matheny stopped the fight. But I don’t let anybody get hurt either. My first priority is a fighter’s safety and the second is to make sure they fight according to MMA rules.”

“I might stop an amateur a little bit earlier than a pro fight because if someone gets hurt, then it’s on me,” he said. “If they’re not fighting intelligently, I’ll stop it.

“Letting guys fight forces me to be right there recognizing if they’re in it or out of it. I’ll give you every opportunity to get out.”

Matheny seems to thrive on the pressure. His fulltime job is private investigator, which means he deals with a lot of ne’er-do-wells. He also trains bodyguards and teaches firearms instruction.

Matheny is known on the MMA circuit for packing a gun, but he probably doesn’t need it. He’s a sixth degree Black Belt in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, a state and national karate champion and member of the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He’s still strong enough to bear hug a fighter who threw a cheap shot at the last local show and spry enough to prop his leg on top of the cage.

“I just do that to mess with the fighters,” he said.

His so-called “hobby” is hunting rattlesnakes with his buddies back in his native West Virginia. There’s a video on YouTube, with the banjo-strumming Deliverance music as accompaniment, of Matheny catching a rattler and then getting a tad too close to it with his video camera.

“I’m still here,” joked Matheny, whose signature move is forming snake fangs with his hand when he’s introduced before a show. “It got to the camera before it got to me.”

Matheny, who got started in MMA hosting shows in his Newark gym, Impact Martial Arts, has had a couple of scares in the cage. One time, trying to protect a fighter he felt was knocked out, his face got in the way of a punch by the opponent.

“I took a knee, but didn’t tap out,” Matheny cracked.

Another time, he was pulling a 285-pound fighter away from a full mount knockout and ended up flipping the guy on his back.

“I’m still not sure how that happened,” he said.

Nobody needs to worry about Matheny taking care of himself. Back in the late Nineties, when he was putting on shows and trying to fill cards, he’d sometimes step in and fight

“I’d pick some skinny white biker, choke him out, and go back to working the DJ booth,” said Matheny, who is proud to say that UFC fighters Matt Brown and Jorge Gurgel got their starts in one of his shows.

“I love this sport. It wouldn’t be where it is today if I hadn’t built an octagon at my school. Somebody would have screwed it up and given it a bad name.”

Matheny is respected for treating all fighters the same, whether they are novices or pros.

“He lets us know the refs wear black just to be a shadow in the cage,” Stevens said. “He’s always thanking us and telling us we’re the reason we have these shows. You appreciate that, especially when you’re young and nervous. “When you hear that from a UFC ref, it helps subside the nerves. It makes you think, ‘Yeah, you know, our hard work does mean something.’ You get gratification out of it.”

Matheny said it’s the love of the sport, not the income, that keeps him going. Plus, there’s never a dull moment.

“One day your life is going to flash before you,” Matheny said, “so make sure it’s worth watching.”

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