Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Josh Thompson & "Big" John McCarthy (2026) - Refining the Rules of Modern MMA Combat

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Josh Thompson & "Big" John McCarthy (2026) - Refining the Rules of Modern MMA Combat · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
• 0:03
  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
• 0:06
  our latest episodes in your feed.
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  Thanks for having me. OK, so imagine for a second just
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  stepping into a locked steel cage right to fight a highly
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  trained martial artist. Sounds terrifying.
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  Right. But now imagine doing it after
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  like, starving yourself for 48 hours, physically draining the
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  protective fluid from around your own brain, and wearing a
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  solid piece of Thai steel over your groin.
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  Yeah, that is a whole different level of.
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  Crazy. So today we are tearing the
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  curtain back on the bizarre biology and, you know, the
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  hidden rules of mixed martial arts.
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  We're doing a deep dive into this massive behind the scenes
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  conversation featuring legendary MMA referee Big John McCarthy
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  and former fighter Josh Thompson.
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  And this is, I mean, it's not just about who threw as the
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  hardest punch. No, not at all.
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  We are diving into the hidden mechanics of the sport, right?
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  The bizarre bureaucratic rules, the absolute physiological
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  insanity of weight cutting, the startling medical realities of
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  brain trauma, and the complex business engine that keeps this
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  whole brutal circus running. Yeah, it's a remarkable look at
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  the reality of combat sports because you look at the cage and
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  you see two athletes engaged in what looks like, you know, pure,
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  visceral chaos. Oh yeah, just blood and guts,
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  right? But beneath that surface, the
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  fight is actually governed by a highly complex, sometimes deeply
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  flawed system of human biology and backroom politics.
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  Every single second of what happens under those lights is
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  dictated by a web of regulations, extreme physical
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  manipulation and, well, immense financial pressure.
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  OK, let's unpack this. Because before we even look at
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  the athletes themselves, we really have to look at the rules
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  that bind them and the people enforcing those rules.
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  You know the referees. All the referees, yeah.
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  It's an incredibly weird ecosystem.
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  You have the situation where active referees are practically
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  gagged by athletic commissions. They aren't allowed to openly
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  talk about promotions or explain fighter safety issues publicly.
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  Yeah, which is why McCarthy and Thompson actually created a
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  workaround segment called McCarthy Mondays, right?
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  It gives John a platform to explain the actual mechanics of
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  why referees make these split second controversial calls, but
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  without technically violating the commission's gag orders.
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  And it highlights a massive bureaucratic bottleneck at the
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  heart of the sport, doesn't it? Absolutely.
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  The state athletic commissions silence the referees because
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  they want to avoid controversy. But in doing so, I mean they
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  choke off the very transparency that the sport needs to evolve.
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  Which is so backwards. It is when a referee can break
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  down the exact positioning, the line of sight and the mechanics
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  of a controversial call. Everyone, the fans, the
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  fighters, and the sport as a whole, benefits.
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  Instead, you have this historical inertia where
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  bureaucracy just favors absolute silence over education.
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  Right. And Speaking of that historical
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  inertia, let's talk about the legendary 12 to 6 elbow, because
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  this perfectly captures the absurdity of M and A
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  bureaucracy. Oh, this is a classic example.
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  For years, striking perfectly downward, like from the ceiling
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  straight down to the floor like a clock face from 12 to 6 was
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  completely illegal, right? And why?
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  Because decades ago, athletic commissioners saw traditional
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  martial artists breaking blocks of ice on late night television
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  and assumed it was some sort of, I don't know, deadly,
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  unstoppable death blow. Which is just hilarious in
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  hindsight. Seriously.
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  Now the governing bodies have finally realized how silly that
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  is and legalized it. But here is the catch.
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  They gave a six month grace period for fighters to adapt
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  their muscle memory. Right, which sounds reasonable
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  until you factor in state by state Commission lag.
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  Exactly, because if you fight in New Jersey right now, they
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  haven't updated their specific state code, so it's still
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  illegal there. Wow.
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  Yeah, imagine a fighter who was trained for months deliberately
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  on learning a deeply ingrained rule to utilize the strike.
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  Then they get booked in New Jersey.
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  Oh, that's a nightmare. Right in the middle of a
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  fistfight, with their heart rate at like 180 beats per minute,
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  they have to mentally cross reference state lines and
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  remember to switch back to the old rules.
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  Yeah, you are forcing an immense cognitive load onto an athlete
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  who is already dealing with split second survival decisions.
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  Exactly. You're asking a fighter in a
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  state of high adrenaline, taking physical damage to pause their
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  natural offensive instincts to, you know, consult a state
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  specific legal code. It is a recipe for disaster.
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  Totally. It leads to accidental fouls,
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  unfair point deductions and compromise fights simply because
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  a state legislature moves slower than the sport does.
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  And the equipment rules are just as wild.
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  I mean, we assume these athletes are wrapped in cutting edge
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  protective gear, but we learned from this deep dive that
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  fighters are stepping into the cage with unboiled boil and bite
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  mouthpiece. It's crazy.
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  They were literally ripping a $5 piece of hard plastic out of the
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  packaging on Fight Night and throwing it in their mouths.
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  It doesn't conform to their teeth and it offers zero actual
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  shock absorption for the jaw. None at all, and even crazier,
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  they are legally allowed to wear solid steel cups like actual
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  Thai steel strapped over their groin.
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  Which, I mean, sounds incredibly protective until you consider
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  the specific physics of grappling.
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  MMA isn't just striking, it involves complex groundwork.
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  If an opponent goes to kick the inner thigh and accidentally
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  clips that steel cup with her toe, they can literally shatter
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  the bones in their foot against it.
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  Or consider a grappling exchange like the North-south position.
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  Right, so for the listener picture one fighter lying flat
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  on their back and the other fighter is pinning them from the
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  top but facing the opposite direction like head to chest.
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  Precisely in that dominant top position, the top fighter can
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  literally use that piece of solid iron to grind directly
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  into their opponent's sternum or ribs to restrict breathing or
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  forces submission. That's brutal.
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  It completely changes the leverage of the hold.
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  It is a piece of defensive equipment that has been actively
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  weaponized through a regulatory loophole.
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  Wow. Which brings us to a master
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  class in why competent referees matter so much when the human
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  body is being pushed to these absolute limits.
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  There's this legendary story of Frank Mir fighting Tim Sylvia
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  for the heavyweight. Title.
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  Oh, this is a famous one, yeah. Frank Mir locks in an arm bar.
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  Referee Erb Dean is hovering right over them.
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  Dean sees Sylvia's forearm bones physically snap, he sees 2
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  distinct pops, and the arm bends like cheap plastic.
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  Nasty. Herb immediately jumps in and
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  waves off the fight, but Tim Sylvia's corner goes absolutely
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  ballistic because Sylvia is running on pure adrenaline and
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  is still trying to fight. Right, he doesn't even know his
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  arm is broken. Exactly, even the ringside Dr.
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  comes into the cage, looks at the arm and tells the referee
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  there's nothing wrong with it. And Herb Dean famously looks the
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  medical professional and says X-ray that mother fur.
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  That's amazing. Sure enough, they go to the
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  hospital and both bones in the forearm or snapped straight
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  across. Yeah, that is the gold standard
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  of refereeing ERB Dean understood the physiological
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  mechanics of an arm bar better than the ringside physician did
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  in that chaotic moment. Yeah, clearly.
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  He saw the tension, he saw the structural failure of the radius
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  and ulna, and he acted to save the fighter from permanent
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  catastrophic joint destruction even when the fighters own
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  adrenaline mask the injury. Wait I'm stuck on this though.
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  We celebrate Urb Dean's brilliance there, but we also
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  constantly hear about terrible judging.
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  Like fighters losing half their paychecks because it judge sit
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  in cage side completely misunderstands the fight.
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  All the time. If judging is so consistently
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  blind, why don't we just use 5 judges instead of three?
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  Wouldn't more opinions smooth out the bad calls?
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  It's a logical thought for sure, but adding two more bad judges
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  to three bad judges doesn't fix the root problem of
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  incompetence, it just dilutes the process further.
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  I guess. The real issue is the physical
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  limitations of sitting in the judge's chair.
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  As commentators or fans at home we watch perfect multi angle
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  broadcast monitors. We get slow motion replays.
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  A judge is sitting cage side looking through a chain link
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  fence. They are constantly dealing with
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  camera operators physically blocking their view of the
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  action. They're trying to score minute
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  grappling advantages in real time from terrible vantage
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  points. So why not just put the judges
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  in a quiet backroom with a wall of broadcast monitors?
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  Why force them to look through the fence at all?
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  Because of the very athletic commissions we were just
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  discussing, they are bound by decades old boxing regulations
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  that mandate judges sit at ringside.
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  Until you fix the training protocols and update the
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  physical vantage points, throwing more bodies at the
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  problem is entirely useless. Man, that structural
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  stubbornness is fascinating. So those are the external rules
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  enforced by the refs and commissions.
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  But now we really have to talk about the internal rules, the
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  biological laws that fighters deliberately try to cheat before
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  the cage door even locks. Oh boy, I'm talking about weight
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  cutting. This is where this deep dive
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  gets genuinely terrifying. It is without a doubt the most
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  dangerous aspect of combat sports, and it happens before a
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  single punch is ever thrown. Think about the sheer irony
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  here. In football, soccer or
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  basketball, teams spend millions of dollars on high end chefs,
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  nutritionists and sports scientists to absolutely
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  optimize their athletes performance.
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  To get them peaking physically. Yeah, in MMA they take elite
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  world class athletes and intentionally starve and
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  dehydrate them for 48 hours right before the most physically
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  dangerous event of their lives. We're talking about extreme
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  biological manipulation. It's madness.
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  Take Alex Pereira, a champion fighting at 185 lbs.
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  While his natural walk around weight is £250, he is pulling 65
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  lbs off his frame. Insane.
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  Then you have a guy like Max Holloway whose career
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  experienced a massive resurgence with incredible new speed and
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  power the minute he stopped killing his organs to make 145
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  lbs and just moved up a weight class.
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  Yeah, because the human body is predominantly water and more
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  importantly, the brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid.
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  When fighters cut these massive amounts of weight, sitting in
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  boiling hot baths, wearing plastic sweat suits, spitting
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  into cups just to drain the last ounces of fluid, they are
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  looking for a size advantage on Fight Night.
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  They want to be the bigger guy. They.
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  Want to be the bigger man in the cage?
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  But the biological cost is staggering.
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  The diminishing returns set in incredibly fast.
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  Yes, you might step into the cage heavier after rehydrating,
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  but that severe dehydration beforehand fundamentally
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  destroys your speed and your reaction time.
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  And it's like taking the shock absorbers off a car right before
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  you drive it into a brick wall, right?
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  Exactly. The fluid protecting the brain
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  is depleted. The brain physically shrinks
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  away from the skull. This makes concussions far more
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  likely from strikes that a fully hydrated fighter would normally
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  absorb without issue. You are stepping into a
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  fistfight with a structurally compromised neurological system.
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  There is a proposed solution that always gets floated right?
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  Random weigh insurance. Yeah, basically mandating that
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  on any given random Tuesday, a fighter can never be more than,
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  say, 10 lbs over their contracted weight class.
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  Right. Just outlaw the extreme
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  fluctuations entirely, yeah? But the massive promotions won't
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  adopt it. Why?
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  Because if a starfighter randomly weighs 15 lbs over the
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  limit a month before the fight, the promotion is forced by their
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  own rules to pull the fight. And they risk losing highly
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  profitable multimillion dollar main events.
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  Exactly. So the show goes on and the
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  athletes keep draining themselves.
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  And what's fascinating here is how the physical realities of
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  grappling collide with this neurological vulnerability.
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  If you were a 220 LB man who has managed to cut down to 185, that
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  size advantage absolutely helps when you were laying on top of
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  an opponent. Sure, gravity is your best
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  friend when you were smothering someone.
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  Right, but because your cellular energy is depleted from the cut,
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  your gas tank empties incredibly fast.
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  More dangerously, because of the fluid dynamics in the skull we
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  just discussed, your dehydrated brain makes you incredibly
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  susceptible to being knocked completely unconscious by a much
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  lighter punch. You become a massive, heavy
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  target with a glass jaw. It's a desperate, dangerous
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  biological gamble. A gamble with permanent
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  consequences, which leads us directly into the permanent
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  damage they absorb when those shock absorbers are gone.
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  We are talking about brain trauma.
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  And here is where the science gets incredibly specific.
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  The conversation dives into CTE and specifically a genetic
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  marker called the APOE 4 gene. Yes, there is an emerging
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  significant study indicating that carrying the APOE 4 gene
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  heavily modifies the risk and severity of chronic traumatic
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  encephalopathy, or CTE, resulting from repetitive head
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  impacts. Now it's vital to understand the
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  mechanism here. The gene itself doesn't
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  spontaneously cause CTE. If you carry the APOE 4 gene and
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  you work in an office and never take head impacts, you're
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  perfectly fine. But if you carry it and you
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  decide to get kicked in the head for a living?
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  Precisely, if you carry this genetic marker and you absorb
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  repetitive trauma, your risk of advanced CTE and the rapid
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  buildup of Tau proteins in the frontal lobe of the brain is
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  exponentially higher. The gene acts as a biological
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  multiplier for the damage. That is terrifying to think
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  about. And Speaking of the weird
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  biology of brain trauma, the medical reality of fighting
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  produces some incredibly counterintuitive phenomena, like
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  the double knockout effect. Oh yeah, a fighter gets hit
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  cleanly on the feet, their brain essentially shuts off and they
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  are knocked completely limply unconscious on the way down to
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  the canvas. But when they hit the floor, the
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  opponent follows up with a massive secondary strike to
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  their head on the ground, and that second impact literally
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  wakes them back up. It's so weird.
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  They snap right back into consciousness and start
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  defending themselves. How does a punch wake a sleeping
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  brain? Well, from a neurological
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  standpoint, a concussive impact violently scrambles the
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  electrical synapses in the brain.
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  It's like a massive power surge that trips the circuit breaker,
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  causing the shutdown. Right?
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  But the human body, especially in a state of extreme trauma, is
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  incredibly unpredictable. A secondary mass of trauma can
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  sometimes jolt those electrical synapses back into connection,
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  effectively rebooting the system.
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  However, just because the fighters awake does not mean
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  they are OK. The physical damage to the brain
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  tissue is heavily compounding, which brings up the crucial
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  protocol of recovery. Yes, because how you handle that
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  rebooted system is everything. We see two very different
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  approaches to recovery. You have a recent champion,
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  Alexander Volkanovsky, who suffered A brutal head kick
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  knockout. Unbelievably, he returned to
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  fight a massive puncher, Islam Makachev, on just 11 days
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  notice. That was shocking.
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  Right. Compare that modern MMA approach
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  to legendary boxing coach Freddie Roach.
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  If one of Roach's fighters suffers A knockout, he
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  implements A strict mandatory one year layoff.
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  No sparring, no fighting. A full 365 days for the brain to
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  rest and the inflammation to subside.
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  And that makes total sense medically.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting for me.
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  Fans love to romanticize the idea of fighters going out on
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  their shield, being a warrior. We applaud the guy who takes a
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  fight on 11 days notice after a concussion, but aren't the
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  coaches fundamentally failing their athletes by not saving
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  them from their own bravery? Well, if we connect this to the
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  bigger picture of human anatomy, we hit a profound truth that
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  dictates fighter behavior. The human brain has absolutely
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  no pain receptors. Think about that.
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  Right. If a fighter breaks their hand
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  on an opponent's skull, it is excruciating.
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  The nervous system screams at them that it is broken, but the
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  brain itself cannot feel pain. A fighter cannot feel their
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  damaged synapses or the swelling of their brain tissue, or
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  they're mounting CTE. So they literally don't know how
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  bad it is. Exactly.
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  Therefore, they are utterly reliant on their corners, their
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  coaches, and their families to act as their surrogate pain
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  receptors. They rely on them to protect
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  their long term cognitive health.
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  When a coach allows a neurologically compromised
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  fighter back into the cage too soon, they are ignoring their
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  most sacred duty, often prioritizing a short term
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  paycheck or the fighter's ego over their long term survival.
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  It's chilling when you realize they literally can't feel the
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  damage that is killing them. And it's not just the
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  accumulated damage that's wild, it's the biological freak
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  stepping into the cage who somehow seem immune to the
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  normal laws of human physics. Take you all, Romero.
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  Oh man, Romero. He is an absolute physical
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  anomaly. After a fight where his orbital
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  bone was broken, a doctor examined him and was absolutely
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  stunned. The doctor found that the
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  tendons in Romero's eye were three times the size of a normal
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  human beings. His bone was already rapidly
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  calcifying and healing itself at a rate the medical professional
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  had never seen. Which introduces a whole new
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  variable. You are no longer just fighting
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  another trained athlete, you are fighting a genetic outlier whose
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  structural integrity operates on a different scale.
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  And it gets even crazier when we look outside of MMA to the wild
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  world of the enhanced games that they discussed a proposed sports
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  league with absolutely 0 drug testing, Just pure unadulterated
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  chemical enhancement. Oh yeah, they brought up an
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  athlete named Andre Smady, a £350 bodybuilder and arm
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  wrestler who is doing one arm pull ups.
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  And he's doing this because he reportedly takes 1000 units of
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  human growth hormone every single day.
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  That's unbelievable. Right.
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  The guys in this conversation are looking at this and
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  wondering what happens when you combine that level of chemical
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  engineering with the damage image inducing reality of combat
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  sports. It creates an absolute ethical
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  nightmare when you introduce someone taking 1000 units of HGH
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  into a sport where the explicit goal is blunt force trauma.
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  You aren't just breaking track and field records, you are
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  fundamentally altering the physics of a punch.
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  Right, it's not just running faster.
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  Exactly. The human skull and cervical
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  spine are simply not evolved to absorb a strike generated by a
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  chemically engineered muscle mass of that density.
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  You are engineering a human to inflict maximum, potentially
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  fatal physical trauma on an unenhanced human.
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  So why do they endure all this? The starvation of extreme weight
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  cuts The invisible brain. Trauma.
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  The risk of fighting genetic anomalies and chemically
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  enhanced superhumans. It all comes down to the
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  business of the brawl. Exactly the ultimate reason
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  these athletes put themselves through the meat grinder.
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  Let's look at the financial engine and the environmental
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  conditions they're forced to fight under.
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  Yet the structural economics of the sport heavily dictate the
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  athletes willingness to absorb this damage.
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  There is a massive fundamental flaw in the sports pay
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  structure, the win bonus. Essentially, a fighter gets half
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  their contracted pay just for showing up and fighting, and the
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  other half only if their hand is raised in victory.
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  But fighters are already fighting as hard as humanly
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  possible because of pride and literal survival in a cage,
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  tying half their livelihood to the whims of the judges we
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  discussed earlier. Judges who are staring through
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  chain link fences with blocked views is a systemic failure.
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  It really is. If you ask a fighter what
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  they're fighting for, they've mentally already spent that win
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  bonus to pay their coaches, their training partners, and
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  their mortgages. It's like a corporate boss
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  withholding half your annual salary because a customer left a
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  bad Yelp review about the lighting in the store, something
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  you had absolutely no control over.
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  Uh huh. To build on that analogy, you
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  are actively penalizing the employee for a metric decided by
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  a flawed, subjective third party.
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  Well, the employee's the one risking their long term
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  neurological health to provide the product.
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  Perfectly set. The promoter absorbs none of the
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  physical risk but retains control over the financial
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  upside. It fundamentally misunderstands
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  fighter psychology and weaponizes their financial
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  desperation. And that desperation allows the
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  promotion to prioritize spectacle over sport.
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  Look at the proposal to host AUFC World Championship fight
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  outdoors at the White House in the middle of June.
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  Oh. That was a wild idea.
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  You are taking world class athletes who have already
• 20:13
  dangerously dehydrated themselves, completely depleting
• 20:17
  their bodies, and you are throwing them into a 100°
• 20:20
  outdoor environment in Washington DC under massive
• 20:23
  baking production lights, surrounded by swarms of bugs.
• 20:26
  Just for the visuals. It's sheer lunacy.
• 20:28
  You are adding extreme environmental hazards to a world
• 20:31
  championship fight just for the visual aesthetic of the
• 20:34
  television broadcast. Right, and it perfectly
• 20:36
  illustrates the tension in prize fighting when the demands of the
• 20:40
  business and the promotion actively work against the safety
• 20:43
  and integrity of the actual athletic contest.
• 20:45
  The spectacle compromises the sport.
• 20:47
  So what happens when the spectacle is over, when the
• 20:51
  sport spits these athletes out? This leads to a fascinating
• 20:54
  crossover into societal issues and the search for post career
• 20:58
  healing because that instinct to ignore long term health for a
• 21:02
  short term paycheck doesn't just end when a fighter retires, it
• 21:05
  spills out into society. It really does.
• 21:08
  We see a massive push right now to legalize IBO, gain a powerful
• 21:12
  psychedelic to treat traumatic brain injury, and severe PTSD in
• 21:17
  both veterans and retired fighters.
• 21:19
  This raises an important question regarding the aftermath
• 21:22
  of institutional violence. When you look at athletes and by
• 21:25
  extension military veterans, who are systematically chewed up by
• 21:29
  the machine of their professions, society is
• 21:31
  eventually left holding the bill for their care.
• 21:34
  And what's incredible about this push for ibogaine is the bizarre
• 21:37
  political alliances it's creating to cut through the
• 21:39
  bureaucratic red tape. You have figures across the
• 21:41
  spectrum, everyone from progressive medical advocates to
• 21:44
  Texas Republicans like Rick Perry and Dan Patrick, looking
• 21:48
  at the massive failures of the current systems and pushing for
• 21:51
  these psychedelic breakthroughs. That's huge.
• 21:53
  They are literally texting Donald Trump to get immediate
• 21:56
  action. It's a fascinating reflection of
• 21:58
  deep frustrated with large institutions.
• 22:01
  For instance, the conversation touched on California spending
• 22:05
  $24 billion on its homelessness crisis.
• 22:07
  Right, right. Now, to be clear to you
• 22:09
  listening, the point here isn't about left versus right.
• 22:12
  It's about observing A profound frustration with broken systems.
• 22:16
  The sentiment and the source material is that governments are
• 22:19
  spending billions on treating symptoms like providing phones
• 22:22
  or clean needles without actually solving the root trauma
• 22:26
  and addiction that plagues people on the streets.
• 22:28
  Exactly. The common thread connecting all
• 22:30
  of these topics is the failure of large institutions to protect
• 22:34
  the individuals they are supposed to serve.
• 22:36
  Whether it is an athletic Commission silencing A referee
• 22:38
  from explaining the rules, a sports promotion withholding
• 22:41
  half a fighter's pay based on blind judging, or a government
• 22:44
  bureaucracy spending 10s of billions of dollars without
• 22:47
  treating the root causes of mental trauma, the frustration
• 22:50
  is universal. Society is being forced to
• 22:53
  innovate, like pushing for radical psychedelic treatment
• 22:57
  out of sheer necessity to clean up the resulting human wreckage.
• 23:01
  Wow. So what does this all mean for
• 23:03
  you, the listener? We've gone on a massive journey
• 23:06
  today. We started with the split second
• 23:08
  high stakes decisions of referees trying to save limbs.
• 23:12
  We unpacked the agonizing brain shrinking physics of weight
• 23:16
  cutting. Yeah, we covered a lot.
• 23:17
  We explored the terrifying biological limits of the human
• 23:20
  brain against blunt force trauma.
• 23:22
  And finally, we looked at the deeply flawed business model
• 23:25
  that profits off every drop of blood.
• 23:27
  I will leave you with this final provocative thought to Mull
• 23:30
  over. We are entering an era of
• 23:32
  unprecedented biological mapping.
• 23:35
  If we now understand the precise genetic markers for CTE, like
• 23:39
  the APOE 4 gene acting as a damage multiplier, and we can
• 23:43
  map the exact neurological degradation caused by acute
• 23:46
  dehydration, will there come a day when combat sports
• 23:49
  fundamentally change? How do you mean?
• 23:51
  Could we see a future where fighters are no longer regulated
• 23:54
  by a weight scale, but instead submit to mandatory genetic
• 23:58
  testing and brain scan quotas? A future where athletes are
• 24:01
  retired not when they start losing fights, but when your
• 24:03
  biological and neurological budget is mathematically spent.
• 24:07
  Wow, a neurological salary cap for fighters?
• 24:10
  That is a wild, slightly dystopian, but completely
• 24:13
  plausible future. Thank you so much for joining us
• 24:15
  on this deep dive. The next time you watch a fight,
• 24:17
  we hope you view it not just as a physical contest between two
• 24:20
  people in a cage, but as a massive, complex collision of
• 24:23
  biology, physics, and business. See you next time.