There has always been a larger-than-life ambience about him, and “Big” John McCarthy is already pretty hefty. He stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 260 pounds, and one gets the impression that the third guy in the Octagon can still kick the asses of most of the guys he separates in there; and McCarthy is 54.
A former decorated member of the Los Angeles Police Department, McCarthy has been mixed martial arts’ best beat cop the last two decades, perhaps more memorialized as the sport’s big-shouldered guardian, a walking, talking MMA encyclopedia. McCarthy has gone from an initial proponent for what was once deemed “human cockfighting” to reaching iconic stature.