FanHouse BigJohnMccarthy

Last week, EA Sports announced that legendary MMA referee, "Big" John McCarthy, would be featured in their upcoming EA MMA video, which is slated to hit stores in 2010. FanHouse attended the press conference in Hoffman Estates, Ill., to announce McCarthy's involvement in the game (as well as Muhammed Lawal, Jake Shields and Brett Rogers) and details about the game itself.

Below is a video interview with McCarthy talking about being a part of EA MMA, his relationship with UFC president Dana White, and the current state of refereeing and judging in the sport.

The referee Big John McCarthy once described Randy Couture as the most mentally impressive athlete in the history of MMA. The way Couture talks about his preparation for his UFC 105 fight with Brandon Vera explains why Couture has always excelled at the mental aspect of the sport.

UFC Twitter universe had questions this weekend about the state of the UFC welterweight division after Mike Swick pulled out of UFC 103 with a concussion, about the reasons for referee Big John McCarthy staying out of the Octagon, and about a couple of UFC lightweights, Gray Maynard and Junie Browning.

Your questions and my answers in our latest UFC Twitter mailbag are below.

MMA Twitter universe spent much of the day urging UFC President Dana White to let referee Big John McCarthy back into the Octagon, and my post about the Big John Twitter bomb drew some feedback for our MMA Twitter mailbag.

But we'll start the mailbag with a question about the upcoming M-1 Global/Strikeforce fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers. Your questions, and my answers, are below.

Has there ever been a more popular referee, in any sport, than Big John McCarthy? Maybe Mills Lane in boxing, or (until a big mistake last year) Ed Hochuli in football, but I don't know if either ref was as universally beloved in his sport as McCarthy is in mixed martial arts.

Going all the way back to UFC 2, McCarthy has been the official in MMA, but he hasn't worked a UFC fight since 2007, when he left to become a broadcaster and said some things that irritated the UFC brass. McCarthy is back to refereeing, but he's not back in the UFC -- and some fans are taking to Twitter to try to change that.

As a relatively new promoter in the mixed martial arts world, Strikeforce has two objectives during events. First of all, it hopes for excitement. Second, it hopes to create new stars.

Both goals were reached during Saturday night's card on Strikeforce.

Jake Shields, Brett Rogers and Nick Diaz emerged as forces to be reckoned with after wins during Strikeforce's St. Louis event.

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