- John McCarthy thinks referee Gary Copeland made a mistake by letting Chris Weidman fight Bruno Silva with his fingers sticking out
- “Big John” explained why it was only right that the Weidman’s TKO win was changed to technical decision and not No Contest
John McCarthy gave his honest take on the controversial eye poke incident that resulted in a technical decision win for Chris Weidman over Bruno Silva at UFC Atlantic City.
Big John smelled bias
Speaking on his Weighing In podcast with Josh Thomson, “Big John” did not shy away from stating that he sensed a little of bias on how referee in charge Gary Copeland allowed Weidman to fight with his fingers sticking out.
“In this situation, when Gary Copeland has Chris Weidman, who is putting his fingers out like it’s a pitchfork, you need to address that as the official. I don’t care that you’re in New Jersey where Chris Weidman is a hero,” McCarthy pointed out.
“I’m being honest, I wanted Chris Weidman to win this fight… But I can’t have Chris Weidman getting preferential treatment as far as you’re the one creating this problem,” he continued. “You need to address the problem and make sure the individual who is creating the problem doesn’t do it anymore. Well, he did do it more.”
The “right thing” was done
It can be recalled that Silva dropped to the matt after getting his eye poked in the third and final round. This ultimately led to Weidman ground and pounding him to a stoppage victory.
Moments later, the judges changed it to a technical decision win in favor of “The All-American” after seeing that Weidman indeed poked Silva’s eye. For McCarthy, who spent years of his career as a UFC referee, it was “the right thing” to do instead of a no contest because the fight reached the final round.
“I don’t think Gary saw the eye pokes [that led to Silva dropping towards the end], so that was understandable. He makes the call of stopping the fight. Once he makes the call of stopping the fight and they look at the tape, you can see that he did get poked in the eye… They need to have the judges score whatever part of the third round they’ve seen. Who won that round? You already have two rounds that have been judged. This need to go to a technical decision. It’s not a unanimous decision victory. It’s a technical decision victory for Chris Weidman,” McCarthy explained.
“Chris had won the first two rounds and if you’re gonna say the third round, I think Chris was winning that one for the most part, too,” he continued. “So, I knew Chris was gonna win the fight, but that way it’s not on the fact that a foul occurred and the referee made a decision to stop it without seeing the foul. Now we’re saying, ‘OK, we see the foul. This is what we do.’ Based upon the fact that the fight had entered the third round, you could go to a technical decision.”
“If the same thing had happened in the second round, it would’ve ended up being a no contest,” he emphasized. “You would not have had a technical decision, because they can only go to that technical decision if the fight enters the third round. By going to that technical decision, it’s the right thing to do. I’m just gonna tell you straight out.”
Bruno’s appeal could be disregarded
Silva hinted at appealing his loss to the commission. However, “Big John” thinks that it might not be considered by the commission as they only made the correct call in turning Weidman’s TKO victory to a technical decision.
“Gary Copeland could’ve decided to have taken points for the fouls. He didn’t do that. That’s his decision,” McCarthy explained. “… So the commission actually did the right thing. But, yes, by doing that right thing, they’re taking the ability of Bruno Silva to protest the stopping of the fight as a TKO and making it a no contest later on. They’re taking that away by doin the right thing.”
The commission has yet to make any new changes to Weidman’s technical decision win over Silva. As it stands, “The All-American” is finally back to the win column after years of consecutive losses.
Watch McCarthy’s full podcast below:
