John McCarthy criticizes ONE Championship referee who DQed Eddie Alvarez

Legendary MMA referee John McCarthy criticized the referee in ONE Championship who DQed Eddie Alvarez at ONE on TNT 1 last week.

Referee Justin Brown took matters into his own hands when he handed Alvarez a red card and a DQ loss last Wednesday at ONE on TNT 1. In the fight, Alvarez took his opponent Iuri Lapicus to the ground and started to rain down punches on his face. However, his opponent slightly turned his head, which caused Alvarez to land one or two punches that might have hit his opponent in the back of the head. As his opponent was unable to continue and had to be stretchered out of the cage, the referee decided he had no choice but to DQ Alvarez.

Speaking on the “Weighing In” podcast with Josh Thomson, McCarthy criticized Brown for DQing Alvarez and he said that disqualifying him for too harsh of a punishment.

“You guys need to understand, you have a responsibility to a lot more than your understanding. You have a responsibility to those fighters. You have a responsibility to the promotion, and you have a responsibility to the fans of MMA and the sport of MMA that you’re going to do something that’s reasonable within what you can do. Just to take a championship fight and throw up a red card or to disqualify somebody, you’re not using your brain. You’re not being reasonable, and you’re not thinking of the full context of what you have,” McCarthy said (h/t MMAFighting.com).

“In this situation, Eddie is looping shots from the side. Directed means you’re coming straight at it. When a fighter is looping a shot, it’s telling you that he’s trying to hit the ear, so he’s hitting the head and hitting the ear, because that’s why he’s looping that shot, and if his opponent starts to turn their head, then if the opponent turns the head and Eddie hits that spot, you tell them, ‘Watch the back of the head.’ What I’m telling you is, you just struck the back of the head, but it’s on your opponent because he turned his head into it, which caused it, but I need you at this moment to redirect to either another target or use another weapon so you can continue on with your attack.”

Do you agree with what John McCarthy said about this referee in ONE Championship?