John McCarthy explains why Max Holloway was “jobbed” by the judges at UFC 251

Legendary MMA official Big John McCarthy believes that Max Holloway was “jobbed” and should have won the UFC featherweight title against Alex Volkanovski.

Holloway lost a narrow split decision to Volkanovski in his bid to re-capture the UFC featherweight crown that he lost to his rival Volkanovski back at UFC 245 last December. It appeared that Holloway had done enough to earn the nod, but two of the three judges scored the rematch in Volkanovski’s favor in one of the most controversial decisions of the year. Since then fight happened, UFC president Dana White, Nate Diaz, Jorge Masvidal, and the majority of media members have come out and said they thought Holloway won.

McCarthy, the legendary MMA referee/judge-turn MMA broadcaster/podcaster, is among those who believe that Holloway should have earned the decision, going to far as to suggest judge Mark Collett should lose his job for scoring the bout in Volkanovsk’s favor. In the latest “Weighing In” podcast, McCarthy explained why he believes Holloway should have won the fight and why he feels the judged “jobbed” Holloway on their scorecards.

“Max Holloway got — I don’t want to say robbed — but he got jobbed because he definitely won that fight,” McCarthy said.

“There are certain people that were — this is where I have a problem — the UFC is responsible for the people who are their officials there. This isn’t the British MMA council who is doing the inspector job and things, it’s the UFC. You picked some really bad people to be your judges because they do not have the levels that it takes to be in the position that they are and judge the fight. Because the Volkanovski fight was not that hard of a fight to judge,” continued McCarthy.

“Max was tooling him in the beginning of that fight. I’ll give Vokanovski coming on in the end, okay. But there’s no way he won three rounds in that fight. Did not happen. Impossible. Sorry, I don’t know what the hell you’re looking at. I wrote the rules you go by for your criteria, and you’re not frikkin following them. I had it 3-2 [for Holloway, giving him the first three rounds]. You almost could have gone 49-46 for Holloway.”

Ultimately, the fight goes does as a split decision loss to Holloway in the record books. While there’s an argument to be made that Holloway deserves another chance to get his belt back, it seems more likely the UFC will give another top contender at 145lbs the chance to win the belt over Volkanovski, even though many do not believe he is the true champion anymore.

Do you agree with John McCarthy that Max Holloway was jobbed by the judges at UFC 251?