“Don’t complain,” John McCarthy defends referee Marc Goddard for stopping the fight in Kamaru Usman vs Colby Covington 1
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John McCarthy on Kamaru Usman vs Colby Covington 1
Former referee, ‘Big’ John McCarthy does not see any wrong in referee Marc Goddard stopping the fight of Kamaru Usman vs Colby Covington at UFC 261.
As we head into UFC 268 this weekend to witness the much-anticipated rematch Kamaru Usman vs Colby Covington 2 at the Madison Square Garden in New York City, referee John McCarthy previews the fight and talks about the first meeting of the two welterweight superstars. At UFC 268, Kamaru Usman will be putting his belt on the line against Colby Covington for the second time in his career. The “Chaos” is looking to capitalize on this opportunity and dethrone the #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
A huge part of the lead-up to this rematch has been Covington trying to dismiss Usman of his win in the first fight. Kamaru Usman defeated Colby Covington via TKO in the 5th round at UFC Colby believes the stoppage was not a fair one and the first fight could’ve been his if not for referee Marc Goddard’s “unfair stoppage”.
In the first fight, Usman was also awarded a stoppage by the referee as the Nigerian Nightmare claimed that Colby kicked him in the crotch illegally. But later the fight was continued. Now that we look back on the first fight, Colby never kicked Usman in the crotch and the fight was paused unfairly. Most of the analysts and experts agree that Usman had won the first fight fair and square.
What John McCarthy had to say about the stoppage:
In the recent episode of the Weighing In podcast, hosted by John McCarthy and Josh Thompson, the former referee and commentator spoke about the decision to stop the first fight between the two welterweights and explained why it was the right decision to do so. “You’re looking at him and you realize his jaw was broken and then he gets put down with a shot. And then he just turtles and you’re telling him move and he wasn’t moving,” said Big John.
“What is that telling you? You got to look and say, ‘Hey I am giving you an opportunity to show me you want to stay in this. All you got to do is try and move. Doesn’t mean you have to get up, doesn’t mean you got to flop on your back, It means that you have to try and move to a position to show me that you wanna stay in this fight.’ And when that doesn’t happen, it gets stopped. Don’t complain.”
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Prateek Athanur
(2961 Articles Published)