John McCarthy Weighs In On Cejudo vs. Dillashaw Stoppage
Renowned referee and current Bellator color commentator “Big” John McCarthy has spoken out on the Henry Cejudo vs. T.J. Dillashaw stoppage.
On Jan. 19, the UFC made its debut on ESPN+. In the main event, Cejudo put his flyweight championship on the line against bantamweight kingpin Dillashaw. Cejudo ended up winning the bout via TKO in 32 seconds. Dillashaw protested the stoppage.
MMA Fighting‘s Marc Raimondi interviewed McCarthy during a Bellator 214 media day event. When asked about the UFC on ESPN+ 1 main event stoppage, McCarthy had the following to say (via BJPenn.com):
“When you say ‘good stoppage, bad stoppage,’ I’m not into saying what’s good or bad. Kevin made a decision. It’s his decision, he’s the one that’s got to live with his decision, along with TJ and the UFC themselves.
“If you’re going to ask me, there’s things that I want a referee to think about,” he continued. “If you’re going to ask me would I have stopped it at that point, no. I wouldn’t have stopped it at that point. This is the reason why: this is not a fight between two guys who are just brought together like ‘oh we’re going to match this fight up,’ whatever fight it is. It’s not, you know, Fighter A against Fighter B. This is a fight where both guys have earned the right to be in the position. They’ve both created a background that’s put them in the position of being champions, and now these are champions going after each other — one to save his entire weight class basically, the other to prove ‘those guys are not as good as me.’”
