John McCarthy shares the former UFC champion who took “pleasure” in hurting his opponents

By Harry Kettle - August 1, 2023

MMA analyst John McCarthy has spoken candidly about the lengths a former UFC heavyweight would go to in order to win.

John McCarthy

Across his many years in the sport of mixed martial arts, John McCarthy has seen it all. The former referee spent a long time with the UFC as one of their main guys, but now, you can catch him doing analyst work on YouTube and commentary work for Bellator.

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As you can imagine, courtesy of his extensive experience, he knows a thing or two about the game. In a recent episode of his podcast, he even revealed some home truths about a heavyweight legend after comparing him to rising star Tom Aspinall.

“[Aspinall’s] got some great skills,” McCarthy said. “He very much reminds me – he looks in a certain way and reminds me of Frank Mir. It’s just that I think he’s even better on the feet than Frank Mir…You talk about people that hurt people on the ground, Frank Mir was definitely one of them.”
His co-host Josh Thomson proceeded to note that Mir “almost got pleasure” out of harming his opponents.

McCarthy looks back at Mir

“Frank’s a very intellectual guy, I love Frank and I’ve spent a lot of time with him in a lot of different places. He is absolutely that guy that – it’s almost that whole ‘proof’ thing…I think Frank Mir was that guy that was in the cage, he was very similar in that ‘Here, I’m gonna put you in this. Tap. Oh, you don’t wanna tap?’ And he would just tear it off.”

Quotes via MMA News

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Topics:

Frank Mir John McCarthy UFC