#1605 - Mark Smith

Joe Rogan (0:16)

Thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it.

Mark Smith (0:17)

Great to be here.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

You have, first of all, as a referee, you have one of the most difficult jobs in MMA, and you're one of the rarest guys because no one complains about you.

Do you know that? Like, I have heard zero complaints about you. Maybe there's somebody out there that's complained. I've never heard it, which is crazy.

Mark Smith (0:35)

It's weird.

You want your name to be called one time. And that's when the announcer says, referee in this fight is such and such. You don't want any complaints other than that, because we know this is a lifetime opportunity for these fighters. We don't want to do anything negatively to affect them. So that's a good thing.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

Well, it's such a difficult job, because you have an impulse. Like, you don't know when to stop. Like, is it now?

Is he okay? Is he gonna be okay? Like, sometimes fights get stopped early, and it is the worst feeling when a guy is kind of rocked, but then someone stops the fight, and then the guy complains, and the crowd's like, boo, and you're like, shit.

Mark Smith (1:13)

It's, you know, it's weird, because our philosophy, and you know, I primarily work with two of the commissions, Nevada State Athletic Commission in California, two of the top commissions in the world.

You don't want to fight to go too long to risk long-term injury for the fighter. So there's that philosophy of maybe stopping a fight one punch too early versus one punch too late. Your goal is to stop it right on time, but it takes a lot of hard work to get to that point. Depending upon the history of the fighter, you know, their ability to come back, and you know, you gotta make that subjective determination right away, when is the time to stop that fight? But man, it's the worst feeling in the world if you think you get to that point, you let it go too long, or if you mistakenly stop it too early. Oh God, it's a hard feeling, and trust me.

Joe Rogan (1:51)

It's such a difficult job. It's so much harder than anything other than fighting. Like everybody else is, like judging is kinda hard, but they kinda, they can hide.

Like you're on TV.

Mark Smith (2:01)

That's right.

Joe Rogan (2:01)

You know, you're right there. If it happens, and if it's you that makes a bad call, like all the hate comes your way.

Mark Smith (2:08)

And you know, you gotta kinda stay away from, you know, some of the social media criticism, cause you got someone there that may not understand the detailed, you know, specifics of how we officiate and what we do.

And you're gonna have critics. I tell everybody going into a fight, fans are gonna hate you or love you. Half the fans are counting for a fighter in the red corner, half are counting for fighters in the blue corner. And depending upon the call you make, it may be the referee's fault, it may be the judge's fault, but your goal is to go in there and be in as objective as possible, and fighter safety is always number one.

Joe Rogan (2:36)

Yeah, and some guys just wanna see people get beaten almost to death. They don't wanna be stopped, even if the guy is covering up and in a turtle, they think they shouldn't stop the fight.

Mark Smith (2:48)

If you stop a fight while somebody is standing up, you're just gonna get crucified for that.

Joe Rogan (2:53)

Well, there was a call with Max Holloway and Calvin Cater, there was a lot of people thought you could have stopped that fight standing up. But Herb was like, not quite. And I think it was the right call.

He gave them, but it was touch and go. You could tell he was lookin at Calvin very carefully.

Mark Smith (3:11)

And there's that, you obviously go to, there's no one better than John McCarthy and Herb Dean been doin this, they've been doin this for so long.

Joe Rogan (3:17)

That's the gold standard.

Mark Smith (3:18)

So their eye of what they're lookin at, and it comes down to intelligent defense. And that's not just holding your hands up. That needs to translate into doing something offensive.

And if you could tell that a guy's listening to your verbal commands, and he's doing something to fight back, as long as he's showin some good cognitive skills and showing something offensive where he's not lookin at long-term injury, there's a possibility of him lettin that fight go. But man, if it's startin to stem on a 10-7 round where the fighter's just gettin destroyed and they're gonna get hurt, now it's our responsibility to step in with fighter safety.