One of the, if not the most, famous mixed martial arts referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy hasn’t worked a UFC or WEC event since 2007. With his absence at UFC 104 in Los Angeles, many fans kept asking “Where’s ‘Big’ John?”

Sherdog.com talked with Dave Thornton, interim executive officer of the California State Athletic Comission, about how the CSAC picked it’s referees for events and whether McCarthy was excluded from certain events.

“Though we have many officials who are working their way up, right now we have only a small pool of about 10 referees qualified to work large promotions,” said Thornton. “We select referees based on experience, training and number of bouts each has to date… We do not keep track of our referees by who has worked what particular promotion, e.g., Strikeforce, WEC, UFC. Our referees are not categorized as ‘accepted’ by any promoter. They are either qualified for any large promotion, or they’re not.”

McCarthy is licensed in Utah, Illinois, Ohio and some Canadian jurisdictions has refereed many other high profile events, which have included Strikeforce shows.

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker had nothing but praise for the ref and considered him an assest.

“He’s the best referee in the country,” said Coker. “He’s refereed all of our big shows. He was one of the pioneers.”

“Every commission has rules on how that works,” Coker said, “but if it’s a situation with big fights on CBS, we’re trying to get him an approval for the commission; it’s never been a problem. I don’t see why he wouldn’t be (approved) for the number-one guy in the country.”

It’s possible we’ll see McCarthy on the Jan. 10 WEC 46 but the CSAC won’t assign referees till the middle of that month, so we’ll have to wait and see if ‘Big’ John will make an appearance in a Zuffa owned promotion.