FanHouse JohnMccarthy

LOS ANGELES -- As is usually the case in the world of UFC president Dana White, a lot is happening on a daily basis. Not only is this weekend UFC 104, but news continues to break on a whole host of topics. FanHouse spoke to White on Thursday about whether Dan Henderson will re-sign with the organization or head to Strikeforce, Bernard Hopkins' recent negative comments about MMA, "Big" John McCarthy not working at UFC 104 and Chuck Liddell's fighting future.

White discussed all those issues and much more. Check out the video interview (which includes mature language) below.

Tim Sylvia and Ray Mercer have been struggling to gain media attention for their boxing match ... err, MMA fight on the same weekend as a UFC event.

Sylvia, however, might get the wrong kind of attention for this: the 6-foot-8 former UFC heavyweight champion weighed in at 310.6 pounds for his fight, which will take place on an Adrenaline MMA card in Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday night.

Nick Diaz spent three minutes and 57 seconds swarming Frank Shamrock in the second round of their fight Saturday night before referee Big John McCarthy finally stopped it. If you watched the fight, you know that already. But you might not know that Diaz had what may have been the most active round in the history of MMA.

In addition to being one of the best fighters in the history of mixed martial arts, Randy Couture is a businessman who's always looking for ventures outside the cage.

And a couple of years ago, Couture had a conversation with Damon Lau that gave rise to a new source of revenue to Couture and several other MMA fighters.

"Randy told me he thought it would be really funny if someone came up with plastic novelty cauliflower ears that people could wear to the fights," Lau says. "I thought that was hilarious."

Big John McCarthy, the most famous referee in the history of mixed martial arts, is back in the cage.

McCarthy reffed an MMA match for the first time in 2008 at tonight's Strikeforce: Destruction card in San Jose, California, where his first fight was a Joe Riggs second-round TKO win over Luke Stewart. In my view, McCarthy looked a little bit rusty, particularly at the end of the fight, when he seemed hesitant to stop it and allowed Stewart to take more punishment than he should have.

But that's a judgment call, and others watching the fight may disagree. The big story of the fight is that Big John is back where he belongs, as the third man in the cage.

Big John McCarthy, the best-known referee in the history of mixed martial arts, is ending his hiatus and getting back into the cage.

Sherdog reports that McCarthy, who quit refereeing to become an MMA commentator, will work the Strikeforce Destruction show on November 21 in San Jose.

"I missed doing it," McCarthy said of working as a ref. "Sometimes when you walk away from something and you think it's time, once you're away you realize what you're missing –- it's kind of like why guys come back to fighting. It's what I like doing. It's what I was meant to do."

Although he no longer works in the cage -- and is on the outs with the UFC -- the most famous referee in the history of mixed martial arts is Big John McCarthy. I think most UFC fans know that Big John was chosen for the job because he was an L.A. police officer who worked as a self-defense instructor, but I don't think many people have ever seen him in action as a cop. Until now:

Via Cage Potato and bigraydaddy.

That was McCarthy, at the very beginning of the clip and about 50 seconds in, working on the streets during the L.A. riots of 1992. I'm sure after that, getting between Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell was a piece of cake.

Interestingly, those riots may never have happened if Big John had ever worked with the four officers who beat Rodney King -- a big part of Big John's job was to teach jiu jitsu techniques to police officers so that they could subdue suspects without having to use their batons or their guns.

After the jump, watch the definitive Big John McCarthy highlight video.