UFC 202 referee John McCarthy is clearly in awe of Conor McGregor

Big John McCarthy has been there for some of the best fights in UFC history. Last Saturday night, he was in the octagon as Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor served up another classic.

Five rounds of back-and-forth gripped the fight world, divided opinion and saw both McGregor and Diaz acclaimed at the end. In a wide-ranging interview with Ultimate MMA, McCarthy spoke about how he reffed the contest, the scorecard decisions and the sheer guts both men displayed. McCarthy is already on record as saying he agreed with the final 48-47 scorecards, in McGregor's favour, of two of the fight judges. He revealed, in this interview, that he was never seriously considering stopping the fight when McGregor was taking some big shots in round three.

"People say 'Why didn't you pull Nate off?' and I'll tell you why. "You've got one guy doing damage to another guy in that position, and Nate was doing a great job in that third round. Was I close to stopping it? No, I was not close because Conor was aware of what he was doing. "He got hit by some shots but he was blocking a lot. He was rolling, his shoulders were blocking shots; he was tired and he was trying to catch wind, let Nate go and not throw a lot back, to save himself. That's what I call smart fighting."

McCarthy was mightily impressed with how McGregor rebounded from that tough round, which one judge scored 10-8 against him, and did well in the fourth round. McCarthy declared:

"There are moments in fights and I don't know if fans see them but I see them. It was going like you were saying [with McGregor struggling], very similar to that first fight. Nate was starting to take over and you could see it on Conor's face. "You could see, at a certain point, he was getting beat. The guy, he grabbed his nuts and he f**king said 'You know what, I've got to continue on. I'm not going to quit; I'm not going to let this go the way it did last time' and he sucked it up. "Both of them put on an incredible performance."

You can check out the full interview with McCarthy here: Massive Dublin v Kerry preview in the latest GAA Hour. Subscribe here on iTunes