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Veteran MMA referee and commentator John McCarthy did not hold back his criticism of the refereeing at UFC 307, calling out the officiating during the Potieria fight. McCarthy specifically targeted long-time Utah ref Dave Seljestad, accusing him of turning what could have been an exciting bout into a disaster due to poor decisions.
One of McCarthy’s main grievances was the handling of multiple eye pokes that Ionuț Potieria suffered throughout the fight. According to McCarthy, Potieria endured eye pokes five to six times, with little to no intervention from the ref. “The referee absolutely destroyed this fight, it was bad.
Potieria got eye poked about five to six times in this thing,” McCarthy said on his Weighing In podcast. He emphasized that while Seljestad had been refereeing in Utah for over two decades, his experience didn’t excuse the performance. “I try to tell people, you take someone that they believe in who’s done it for so long and put them in these positions where it’s everything.”
McCarthy’s frustration wasn’t limited to the eye pokes. He also pointed out the ref’s tendency to make himself the center of attention, which detracted from the fighters’ performances. “Look at when he’s checking the fighters and he starts doing this big swooping motion over the tape on the glove and he makes it dramatic. You go ‘dude, I don’t know if you realize, this isn’t about you; no one gives a s*** about you’.”
One of the most glaring examples of this, according to McCarthy, was how Seljestad handled the clinches. “He broke them off clinches. A guy gets into a clinch on the fence for ten seconds and he separates them, breaks them apart,” McCarthy said. This unnecessary interference prevented fighters from working through their strategy in close range, which can be a crucial part of mixed martial arts.
For McCarthy, the worst part of the night was how the referee overshadowed the fight. “As a referee, you’re never going to make a bad fight good, but you can definitely make a good fight bad. Well, congratulations Dave Seljestad, you made a fight bad.”
This isn’t the first time McCarthy has been vocal about officiating, but his critique of UFC 307 highlights a growing concern about the impact of refereeing on the sport. With the stakes so high for fighters, especially in the UFC, poor officiating can not only affect the outcome but also mar the integrity of the sport. McCarthy’s blunt assessment will undoubtedly fuel more discussion about how referees should be selected and trained, especially for major UFC events.
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