Herb is now by far the worst ref. I think he’s been in the bookies pocket for a long time, he can EASILY change the outcome of a fight without even calling it early, and he often does
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He had a huge chip on his shoulder but he did a lot for the sport.
Mazagatti is a sadist lol.
100% that
A man can only make himself unnoticed for so long.
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Early stoppage IMO
I know a guy who trained with Herb Dean
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Ya but he had the best one-liner.
LETS GET IT ON
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WE ROLLIIIIIN!!!
I was in the first ever ‘BIG’ John MCarthy referee class. It was held at his now closed gym, ‘Big John McCarthy’s Ultimate Training Academy’ (Valencia, CA). There was about 25 of us in the class. Boxing referee Jack Reiss sat next to me (cool guy!). I forget the name of the course (it was something simple like “'BIG John Referee course”).
It was a 2 day class and at the end we had a written test. Also, we had to watch 2 of ‘BIG’ Johns students roll and describe the moves on paper (‘armbar’, ‘RNC’, etc). I think about 70% of the class failed. We also got into a UFC Octagon (I’m pretty sure it was a real UFC Octagon that the UFC gave him) and reffed a ‘real’ fight (2 of ‘BIG’ Johns students sparring). I remember I was bouncing around like I was on a pogo stick and everyone laughed at me, but it was all in good fun. ‘BIG’ John walked everyone through it and gave great pointers.
We also had to watch some UFC fights on mute, and judge/score the rounds. For some reason some dude kept asking about rules in a ‘street fight’. McCarthy sort of laughed and said, ‘well, no rules in a street fight!’. The dude kept asking the dumbest questions, ‘can you tap in a street fight’. I thought we were on ‘PUNKED’ or something, but I think the dude was just dumb & dumber.
‘BIG’ John was cool and I learned a lot. The class was NOT certified by the CA Athletic Commission but it was a good way to get your foot in the door in the local MMA scene. My old BJJ coach was good friends with Herb Dean and Herb told me to come hang out at some local shows and the WEC and he would put in a good word, and let me ref some smaller fights. I ended up reffing about a 100 MMA fights in CA, but they were all ‘underground’ events, but I never reffed any ‘freak show’ fights (drunk dudes fighting in Levi’s or 400 pound dudes fighting straight from a bar stool). I reffed some fights where the dudes became pretty famous UFC fighters. At one WEC I was sitting in the front row and one of the dudes judging had to leave and someone told me to jump in and judge the next fight. Seems so funny now.
I hope ‘BIG’ John goes on the Lytes Out Podcast someday. It would be cool to hear the behind the scene stories from the early UFC’s.
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There are some good points here. John did create the outline for being a mma ref and he had nothing to go on.
He eventually did chill with the unbelievably intrusiveness in fights.
Some of the shit he did was inexcusably ego driven and gay.
Tank would’ve beat his ass back in the day and he tried to have him banned instead of being a man about it.
He has his own podcast with Josh Thompson if you enjoy hearing him talk.
When you watch UFC 5, BJM was incredibly vocal
Rewatch the John Hess vs Andy Anderson fight
- it is non stop action (albeit very sloppy)
BJM was vocal almost the entire fight; in a booming voice “keep working keep working”
In that same event watch the Shamrock - Gracie super fight
30 minutes long
Less than a dozen modest tone “keep working” and a few “your doing good”
I would love to take my notes into an interview with him
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