Dana White Shouldn't Be Allowed to Complain About Referees......

[SinCitysmallGUY]

Steve Cofield reports on the problematic refereeing at UFC 96 and Dana White's outraged response at the post-fight press conference:

The officiating inside the cage at UFC 96 was a big topic in the aftermath. Referee Rick Fike started the night off in dubious fashion and Yves Lavigne almost got Pete Sell killed. That prompted UFC president Dana White to go on a tirade. He's so unhappy with the state of officiating in mixed martial arts that he stated there's only three good referees. And even those guys, he had trouble recalling.

In his rant, Dana names Herb Dean as a quality referee (can't argue there), Mario Yamasaki, says Steve Mazzagatti is NOT but leaves one name noticably unmentioned -- the consensus best referree in the history of MMA: Big John McCarthy.

There simply are not enough top-notch experienced referees in the world for the UFC to continue blackballing McCarthy. I don't care what the man said while he was commenting for the Fight Network, there is too much at stake for Dana to keep the best referee in the biz out of the Octagon.

According to Big John its up to the Athletic Commissions and the UFC.

Do the right thing Dana, bring back Big John:

[zimanu]

Dana is a stupid fanatic.

[MindSpin]

Fuck "Big John".  He turned his back on the UFC and now he must pay the price.

[gmflex]

He is still a ref in california and did a great job at the Affliction event.. A lot MMA in California; he should do well job wise....

[gracie bjj]

refs have tough jobs guys,im not sticking up for them but the pressure must be insane with a audiance of 15000 fans and millions watching on ppv,your job is to protect the fighters from bad injury or possibly death when they can no longer intelligently defend themselves,not to please blood thirsty redneck fans.alot of those red neck fans would love to see everyone leave on a stretcher with major concusions and broken limbs,to them thats cool,to me its not,mma will start getting banned again in alot of states if we start having major injuries or even deaths.ive been to afew ufc,s in my day and alot of people aint knowledgable mma fans like us,alot of them boo the fighters when it hits the ground,i can understand if the guys are laying and praying but i remember matt serra getting bood by some idiot people,matt was going from submission attempt to submission attempt very quickly with great technique and us mma fans where loving it cause we understood what was going on.those other rednecks belong at the (toughman matches) cause they just want to see big guys standing up throwing haymakers.dont get me wrong,i love a nice KO just as much as the next guy but they call it MIXED martial arts for a reason.to be honest i wouldnt want to be in those refs shoes,im happy just sitting in the audiance

[zimanu]

I agree it's not an easy job, but I won't cry over there paycheck!

That said, this was a crazy bad stoppage, there's a huge difference between protecting a guy's life and stopping a fight because the guy received a good punch!!!!

And referees, on the other hand, should stop reacting to the boos of the audience, everybody seems to become a red neck in face of violence, be they a fat black chick or a redish farm boy!