'Tank' Abbott trashes John McCarthy, 'Big John' responds

In the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, when the sport was in its infancy, one of the first fan favorites to emerge was heavyweight brawler David “Tank” Abbott.  

Abbott made his promotional debut at UFC 6 in July 1995, in a featured open weight, eight-man tournament.  The tournament had no weight classes, or weight limits. The matches had no rounds. No judges were used. There was a 30-minute time limit in the finals and, if necessary, a five-minute overtime.

Abbott annihilated John Matua in just 20 seconds to advance to the semifinals.  He finished “The Polar Bear” Paul Varelans in under two minutes and punched his way to the finals.  Advancing on the other side of the basket and facing Abbott in the finals was “The Russian Bear” Oleg Taktarov.  The fight lasted nearly 18 minutes with Taktarov submitting Abbott for the tournament title.  Abbott blames the loss on referee John McCarthy.

“I would have won that fight if ‘Big’ John McCarthy wouldn’t have stuck his melon in-between us and break us up,” Abbott said on the Joe Rogan Podcast.  “He broke this fight up.  There were no rules.  Why did he do that?”

Abbott had top position after fending off a guillotine choke attempt early in the fight.  “Why did he break us up,” Abbott continued.  “He’s corrupt and he’s a crook.”  Abbott went on to accuse McCarthy of disliking him and trying to get him kicked out of the fight promotion.  McCarthy responded to Abbott’s comments on the Weighing In podcast.       

“When it comes to Tank, alcohol had a lot to do with swaying what he even remembers,” said McCarthy.  “He always believed that I hated him.  I’ve never hated Tank.  That was not the case.  There were times were I got pissed off at Tank.”

“He was drunk all the time,” McCarthy continued.  “He told Joe that I stood him up and I’m the reason he lost fight fight (against Taktarov).  This is the whole thing, the rules.  Tank is responsible for certain rules.  UFC 6, he’s the reason I said you can’t fishhook because he’s sticking his fingers in Oleg Takarov’s mouth trying to pull his lips apart.  So I was like, you can’t do that.  The only thing you can do to defend it is bite.  You can’t bite.  You can’t do the fishhook.  So he was responsible for that.  That was his first show.  I had to come up with the rules.  You can’t do that.  It doesn’t look good.    

“The show before, that [Royce] Gracie versus [Ken] Shamrock, if you go back and watch it, it was 36 minutes total.  31 minutes before we stopped it the first time and gave them a minute rest and a five-minute overtime.  The first 31 minutes was on the ground.  At the time, I was not allowed to stand people up, and I liked it that way.  I didn’t have to make any decisions.  It was real simple.  But because of that fight at UFC 6 they wanted me to stand people up.  And I was trying not to stand people up. They were like, ‘No.  No. You’ve got to stand people up.  If they’re just laying there, they’e got to get into action.'”

“I stood them up one time in an 18-minute fight… because he was blowing snot bubbles on the chest of Oleg Takarov,” McCarthy explained.