Jon Jones Explains Why He Doesn’t Want John McCarthy Refereeing his UFC 200 Bout

Jon Jones spoke with MMAjunkie about his manager’s request to have someone other than John McCarthy referee his bout with Daniel Cormier at UFC 200. The NSAC recently approved McCarthy to oversee the fight, with NSAC ED Bob Bennett saying he reviewed the request and didn’t feel there was a substantive enough complaint to make a change. Some highlights are below:

On his issues with John McCarthy: “I really don’t want to get into it too deeply. I’ll just say, based on some interactions that I’ve had with him, I don’t really feel as if – I just feel it would be something that is, energy that isn’t necessarily the best in there, and to him, it’s just refereeing a fight. He does it probably once a week somewhere. For me, this is my life, this is my story, this is my legacy, this is everything to me, and if I don’t agree with his energy that he brings to the fight, if I was him, I wouldn’t want to be a part of it.”

On not wanting McCarthy to referee his UFC 200 bout: “I’m not going to go so far as to say, you’re not welcome, but why would you even want to be a part of someone’s big night that doesn’t want you in there with them. I would respect that and say, ‘I’ll back out of this one. I don’t need to be in this fight if they don’t want me.’ I don’t feel as if we’ve had the best interactions over the years, and I would just really hope he’s not the referee.”

On whether there was any specific instance of an issue between them: “It’s been a mixture of many things throughout the years. Just the energy. I don’t feel like we have the best energy…I just don’t feel as if, you don’t need anything stacking up against you when you’re fighting a great fighter like ‘DC.’”