‘Big’ John McCarthy Scolds UFC 267 Referee: ‘One Of The Worst Examples Of Officiating In UFC’

"Big" John McCarthy says fight fans saw a brutal display of officiating during a UFC 267 prelim fight.

“Big” John McCarthy is none too pleased with one of the officials at UFC 267.

Vyacheslav Kiselev officiated a preliminary bout between Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and Benoît St. Denis. The bout went the distance but many agree it shouldn’t have. Zaleski was putting a beating on St. Denis to the point where color commentators Daniel Cormier and Paul Felder yelled at the referee to stop the fight. Kiselev’s performance was so poor that the UFC pulled him from the event immediately.

John McCarthy Criticizes UFC 267 Official

During an episode of the Weighing In podcast, “Big” John McCarthy took Kiselev to task.

“That referee believed he was doing the right thing. ‘Oh, I’m letting this guy really stay in there. Oh, he’s trying to fight back.’ It’s not your job to let someone try to fight back. It’s your job to take care of them when they are so tough that they won’t quit and someone is putting a beating on them that can affect their life from this day forward in a negative fashion, and that’s what we were seeing. We were seeing a fight where a guy was getting beat that bad.

“Then not only did he let it go past that point, then that fighter gets poked in the eye. So now, not only is he beat to death but he’s blind. Now, we don’t bring in a doctor and we don’t give him hardly any time at all. We just say, ‘You can fight,’ and we let him go back out there to get beat on more now that he’s blind. Then he gets a groin shot. Now, I don’t think the groin shot actually hit him but he got hit in the gut and everything, but you took a point for that [laughs]. This was one of the worst examples of officiating in the UFC I have ever seen.”

UFC President Dana White told media members that this isn’t the first time officials have been pulled in the middle of their cards. He did admit, however, that the Kiselev situation was “horrible.”

Published on November 1, 2021 at 11:23 am
Stay up-to-date with the latest MMA news, rumors, and updates by following the RED Monster on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, don't forget to add MiddleEasy to your Google News feed Follow us on Google News for even more coverage.

Related

Leave a Comment