Big John McCarthy: Jason High got treated very harshly.

[The Great Cochrane]

Jason High made his lightweight debut after an unsuccessful 2-3. His debut performance was against Rafael Dos Anjos who's currently on a stretch of 6-1 in his last 7 fights in the stacked lightweight division. High looked amazing in the fight, but it was his actions after his fight that caused the most controversy as High shoved referee Kevin Mulhol after what many people believe was a premature stoppage.

Dana White immediately gave a while to decide what would happen, and after about a week he decided that High would be cut from the UFC entirely. To make matters worse, the New Mexico State Athletic Commission suspended High for one year prior to the incident, which means he is unable to fight anywhere in the mean time.

There hasn't been too much said on the incident, but one person who believes that High's punishment is a little harsh is long time referee Big John McCarthy. This is what Big John had to say of the incident:

Absolutely there has to be varying degrees of punishment, but it has to be a punishment that is, you know, it evenly matches the crime, and the crime was pretty minimal.

McCarthy also compared the incident as to if UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones were to commit a similar crime.

Jason put his hands on Kevin and kinda pushed him away. It was wrong. To be taken out of the UFC - I understand what Dana White is doing and I'm not saying, you know, Dana is, he's slamming his foot down, going don't do that, you're embarrassing me, you're embarrassing my promotion, you're embarrassing the sport, I can't have that. Now the question is, if Jon Jones would have done the same thing, would he have kicked Jon Jones out of the UFC? He wouldn't have. Now I understand why, I'm not saying that he should, but Jason got punished in a harsh fashion. Now on top of, you know Dana removing him from the UFC, the New Mexico State Athletic commission has, you know suspended him for 1 year. That's one year of time that he cannot make a living fighting. That's a lot. You know, you're having people take away your ability to make a living, based on one act.

He justifies his statement saying that although he would not cut him, he would have taken disciplinary action for the event in the form of a 5-6 month suspension and a fine from the commission.

Sometimes we as human beings, we do things off of emotion that we normally wouldn't do Do I think he should have been punished? Yes. He should have had his hand slapped, he should have gotten, you know a five-month suspension, he should have been fined, we'll say twenty-five hundred, five thousand dollars. That's gonna hurt him, he's gonna feel it, but I think that overall Jason got treated very harshly for what happened.

Jason High made his debut in the UFC back in March 2010 against Charlie Brenneman where he lost a unanimous decision to the Spainard. After going on a 7 fight winning streak he made his return to the promotion where he quickly lost to Erick Silva via submission. He then racked up wins over James Head and Anthony Lapsey before dropping to lightweight and losing to Dos Anjos.

Author: Alex Cochrane
Cited source: Karim Zidan at Bloodyelbow.com

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I'm definitely in agreement with Big John here, I said right from the get go it was a heat of the moment thing. But unfortunately that won't be enough... damn.

 

[Swinny]

Yeah I agree too. He definitely should have gotten punished, but I think the suspension is enough, don't think he needed to be released and essentially blackballed from the organization.

 

[The Great Cochrane]

I'm pretty sure in total he was fined, released, and suspended for a year by the NMAC. Pretty stupid for shoving a referee over a debated stoppage in the first place if you ask me.

 

[Swinny]

I'm pretty sure in total he was fined, released, and suspended for a year by the NMAC. Pretty stupid for shoving a referee over a debated stoppage in the first place if you ask me.

Yeah he was. I'd be okay with the fine and even the suspension, although a year is a bit much think 6 months or something would have done, but don't think he needed to lose his job on top of it.