"If anybody knows, it’s John McCarthy" - Daniel Cormier clears the air about his take on Alex Pereira's knockout following backlash
Daniel Cormier recently clarified his opinion on the Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill light heavyweight title fight at UFC 300 last weekend. Pereira defeated Hill via first-round knockout to retain the 205-pound strap.
During the fight, one of Hill's kicks caught Pereira in the groin. This prompted referee Herb Dean to attempt to step in for a brief moment and pause the fight in case the Brazilian needed recovery time. However, 'Poatan' wanted to continue without pausing and waved Dean away, just seconds before landing a devastating left hook that dropped Hill.
Pereira then followed up with a barrage of brutal ground-and-pound shots till the referee stepped in to stop the contest. In the aftermath, some within the MMA community suggested that Dean's brief attempt to pause the fight may have distracted Hill, which led to his knockout loss.
Cormier was notably among those who questioned whether Dean's actions had an effect on Hill's focus. Later, former referee John McCarthy took to social media and vehemently dismissed the idea of Hill's knockout being Dean's fault.
In a recent X post, 'DC' made it clear that he was simply posing a question and backed McCarthy's clarification. He wrote:
"For the record on the 'Poatan' knockout, I was posing the question. If anybody knows, it’s John McCarthy. So if he says everything was done the correct way, I believe him."
Former UFC lightweight Kevin Lee also shared his take on the issue. He reacted to Cormier's tweet and took to the comments section to point out an important rule of professional fighting. He wrote:
"It’s real similar to [Floyd] Mayweather/ [Victor] Ortiz knockout. Same principles apply: It’s protect yourself at all times."
What did John McCarthy say about Alex Pereira knocking out Jamahal Hill at UFC 300?
Former referee John McCarthy recently cleared the air about Herb Dean potentially causing Jamahal Hill's knockout loss against Alex Pereira at UFC 300 last weekend.
McCarthy defended Dean's actions during the fight and pointed out that referees are supposed to stop the fight in case of a cup shot. However, there is no rule that disallows fighters to waive their five-minute recovery period and continue fighting.
In an X post, he defended Dean against social media backlash and wrote:
"It is inherently bad for the sport and unbelievably embarrassing to hear people who supposedly know the sport of MMA smear the actions of @HerbDeanMMA as if he was responsible for the knockout of @JamahalH at UFC 300... The fighter who is fouled by a strike to the groin is in control of how much time they need to take to sufficiently recover from the foul... Everything Herb Dean did was exactly what we would train any official to do under the same circumstances."