‘Big’ John McCarthy says the most he ever earned for refereeing a full UFC event was $2,000, and that he figures Dan Miragliotta made somewhere around $1,600 for the UFC Vegas 123 main event that’s currently getting him roasted across social media. Ariel Helwani shared McCarthy’s comments on X on Monday.
“Every fight I ever did in the UFC, the most I ever made was $2,000,” McCarthy said, adding that the top figure came at his final show in New York in 2017. He was careful to frame the Miragliotta number as a guess: “I can’t tell you exactly, but Dan probably made $1,600 for that fight.”
McCarthy tied the low pay directly to the pressure officials now face. He pointed to betting as a growing part of the sport and said referees get labeled corrupt even when they do their jobs correctly. “They’re being abused. They have death threats. You can only take so much,” he said. His conclusion was that the combination wears people down until they decide the job isn’t worth it.
View post on X
The fight that started it
The timing is no accident. Miragliotta worked Saturday’s main event between Tom Nolan and Renato Moicano, the first UFC headliner of Nolan’s career, and Nolan finished Moicano. The trouble came earlier, when Miragliotta separated the fighters while Moicano was working from a dominant position in the second round, a call that critics say bailed Nolan out of a bad spot.
The reaction was loud. Jed Meshew called it “the worst refereeing I’ve seen in years” and wrote on X that it had a tangible impact on the fight, though he allowed that Nolan might have finished Moicano later anyway. Former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling posted “Absolutely terrible officiating!!” while quoting a fan who sarcastically congratulated Miragliotta for rewarding a fighter who couldn’t escape the back. MMA Fighting rounded up fighter reactions calling it a massive blunder.
View post on X
There was at least one technical defense. Analyst Tarso Doria wrote on X that under the current unified rules, Miragliotta didn’t break anything. Doria explained that the language on separating fighters only entered the unified rules in 2023-24, in a weaker form than Nevada’s older version, and that the requirement for a verbal warning before a break no longer exists. He also noted that the rules never declared mount or back control untouchable. Doria still said he disagreed with the call, especially that early in the fight. Moicano replied to Doria’s breakdown and said a video on the subject is coming to his channel once he gets home.
Sal’s take
Here’s the math that bugs me. A main event moves serious betting money, and the person whose single decision in Round 2 can flip that money is working for roughly what a decent used couch costs. I’ve lost more than $1,600 on fights where the ref did everything right, and I didn’t send anybody a death threat; I just stared at the ceiling and swore off parlays for a week. You can think Miragliotta blew the Moicano call (I do) and still see that the UFC and the commissions are asking for perfect judgment at bargain-bin prices. Pay rates like McCarthy’s 2017 ceiling won’t keep good officials around once the abuse starts outweighing the check, and that’s the leak worth fixing before the next card.
View post on X
