Referee John McCarthy stunned by Kimbo Slice-Dada 5000 fiasco

The third man in the cage was as appalled as everyone else at what occurred between Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000 at Bellator 149 on Friday.

Veteran referee "Big" John McCarthy had the best look at the extraordinarily strange action that occurred in Houston, and even he struggled to process what was happening.

"I honestly thought it would be over within the first round," McCarthy told Dave Doyle of MMAFighting.com. "And you know, when we got to the end of the first round, I thought, 'Oh my God, this thing's going to go all three rounds.'"

McCarthy's disbelief stems from a fight that saw Slice and Dada become exhausted just minutes after the opening bell. The remainder of the bout only vaguely resembled a professional MMA contest and it ended when Dada appeared to fall down face first onto the mat of his own accord in the third round.

"There was never anything landed that was hard," McCarthy said. "They didn't hit each other with any hard shots. ... Look, there are people that paid money to see this fight. This is not just about you laying on somebody because you're both tired. That's your fault for coming into the fight in that condition."