{"id":267549,"date":"2018-01-09T10:27:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T18:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=267549"},"modified":"2018-01-09T10:33:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T18:33:03","slug":"bellator-announces-legendary-addition-to-their-broadcasting-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/john-mccarthy\/bellator-announces-legendary-addition-to-their-broadcasting-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Bellator announces legendary addition to their broadcasting team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, news surfaced that Bellator MMA had <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/broadcaster-jimmy-smith-tells-joe-rogan-left-bellator\/\">parted way<\/a>s with long-time color commentator <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/jimmy-smith\/former-bellator-commentator-jimmy-smith-expects-new-home-within-week\/\">Jimmy Smith<\/a>. They&#8217;ve already filled the void Smith left behind, and with a pretty surprising name: Big John McCarthy, legendary mixed martial arts referee.\u00a0The promotion announced this interesting addition to their broadcast team in a Tuesday afternoon press release.<\/p>\n<p>McCarthy will split his color commentator duties with current Bellator heavyweight Grand Prix contestant Chael Sonnen, while Mauro Ranallo and Mike Goldberg will share play-by-play duties.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI first want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity I have been given to work with the incredible team Bellator has assembled,&#8221; McCarthy said in a statement, simultaneously announcing he&#8217;s retiring from officiating MMA. &#8220;It is always so hard to leave something you love, but I have always wanted to step away based on my terms rather than someone else\u2019s. My goals are to work as hard as I can to meet the expectations everyone will have for me and to hopefully someday exceed them. I cannot think of anyone I would rather be working with than Scott Coker. Scott has always been a person I admire because of his honesty, loyalty and love for the martial arts. I want to thank everyone from Bellator and Viacom for the trust you are bestowing upon me to keep the commentating of Bellator MMA at the highest levels of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCarthy will make his Bellator broadcast debut at Bellator 192 on January 20, which is headlined by a welterweight title fight between champ Douglas Lima and challenger Rory MacDonald, and co-headlined by a Chael Sonnen vs. Quinton &#8220;Rampage&#8221; Jackson fight, which will serve as the opening bout of Bellator&#8217;s 2018 Heavyweight Grand Prix. This stacked card will air on the new Paramount Network.<\/p>\n<p>How do you think Big John McCarthy will do at the broadcast desk?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 1\/9\/2018. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, news surfaced that Bellator MMA had parted ways with long-time color commentator Jimmy Smith. They&#8217;ve already filled the void Smith left behind, and with a pretty surprising name: Big John McCarthy, legendary mixed martial arts referee.\u00a0The promotion announced this interesting addition to their broadcast team in a Tuesday afternoon press release. McCarthy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54447,"featured_media":240680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10176],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bellator announces legendary addition to their broadcasting team | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shortly after parting ways with Jimmy Smith, Bellator MMA has filled the vacancy at its broadcast desk with a pretty surprising name.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/john-mccarthy\/bellator-announces-legendary-addition-to-their-broadcasting-team\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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