"Big" John McCarthy reveals how he saved Jon Jones from losing his title at UFC 165

Veteran MMA referee John McCarthy has made a sensational claim. John McCarthy revealed that had he not been officiating the fight, Jon Jones would have lost his world title at the UFC 165 headliner against Alexander Gustafsson back in 2013.

Jones faced Alexander Gustafsson for the first time at the UFC 165 pay-per-view in Toronto, Canada and the fight turned out to be arguably the greatest light-heavyweight clash in UFC history.

‘Bones‘ and ‘The Mauler‘ went back and forth in a twenty-five-minute long brutal war inside the Octagon at UFC 165 and at the end of the fight, both men had to be taken to hospital. Jon Jones managed to scrape through with a unanimous decision victory in the end. However, as much as it's Jones' credit for making a huge comeback in the fight, referee John McCarthy claims Jones would not have got the chance to make the comeback at all if the former wasn't overseeing the contest.

John McCarthy reveals how he saved Jon Jones from losing his title to Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165

Speaking on the Weighing in Podcast with Josh Thomson, John McCarthy said that though Jon Jones thinks he hates him, reality is different. John McCarthy also revealed that Jones actually wanted him to officiate the latter's fight against Daniel Cormier but later came out in the media and said he didn’t want John McCarthy to be on the fight. John McCarthy claimed that if he had anything against Jones, he would not have gone against the doctor's decision at UFC 165 to give the champ a fighting chance of retaining his title.

“Let’s talk about it this way, Jon Jones thinks I hate him. He actually at one point you know he wanted to, it was before the Daniel Cormier fight I think, but he came out in the media and said he didn’t want me doing his fight. Is it that I didn’t like Jon? No! I really did like Jon Jones. And I’ll be flat out honest. Jon would have lost his world title if I wasn’t doing his fight at UFC 165 when he fought Alexander Gustafsson. There is not another referee that would have told the doctor ‘No I am not stopping the fight’ and let him go out for the fifth round. And let that fight continue. Alexander Gustafsson was going to be the winner.”

John McCarthy further revealed that if he didn't convince the cage side doctors to let Jones continue despite the latter suffering a bad cut above his eye which prompted the medical professionals to ask John McCarthy to call an end to the contest, then 'Bones' wouldn't have walked away with the title that night.

“When Jon Jones fought Alexander Gustafsson he got hit with a, I think it was a right hand that was on the right eye, in the first round and split his eye open. And he went through the fight, second round, third round, and then the cut got a little bit worse at the end of the third round. At the end of the fourth round the doctor came in and looked at me and he says ‘you know what I don’t like the way his eye is looking, I think we should stop the fight’. So I looked at him and I said ‘He just won that last round I don’t think we need to stop this fight’. He goes ‘I don’t like it’. So I said ‘I tell you what, we’re going to let the fight go on and if I see that cut change at all, I’ll stop the fight and bring you in’. Right. So he said ok and he (Jon Jones) goes out and I am thinking to myself I am never stopping this fight. I am not going to take someone’s title based on a cut that.”