VALENCIA GYM TEACHES MIXED MARTIAL ARTS `ULTIMATE' REF CLEANS UP FIGHT.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

VALENCIA -- Something about many of the gyms where ``Big'' John McCarthy trained growing up made him want to open his own place -- it was that smell.

So when McCarthy, 44, known to fans as the towering referee in cable TV's Ultimate Fighting Championship, opened his gym in Valencia, cleanliness was a priority.

``I always wanted to have an environment that was clean and healthy and had everything someone could actually need to become a good martial artist, or just a healthy person or a fighter,'' he said.

At Big John McCarthy's Ultimate Training Academy, he teaches mixed martial arts, a form of hand-to-hand combat popularized by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that mixes elements of Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, Thai kickboxing, karate, Western boxing and other fighting styles.

``This is the best thing to happen to Valencia since Magic Mountain,'' 34-year-old student Francisco Encisco said.

McCarthy first learned boxing growing up in East Los Angeles.

He trained in various gyms around town, took up wrestling in high school and spent years learning Brazilian jujitsu at the Gracie Academy in Torrance -- one of few that meets his standards for cleanliness.

What really stands out at McCarthy's warehouse-like facility in the Valencia Industrial Center is the eight-sided cage in the middle of the gym, a feature instantly recognizable to anyone who has seen an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on pay-per-view TV.

As a referee, McCarthy is known for announcing ``Let's get it on'' at the beginning of each Ultimate Fighting Championship match, and he's so much associated with the sport's eight-sided ring that he has been called ``The Octagon's Ninth Side.''

McCarthy, standing at 6 feet 4 and weighing more than 250 pounds, was an imposing figure as a referee, but he says he's shrunk slightly with age. A resident of the Santa Clarita Valley, McCarthy works for the Los Angeles Police Department, where he has trained officers for a dozen years. And he still referees in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

When the Ultimate Fighting Championship got its start, it got a reputation for brutal, no-holds-barred fighting that pitted different forms of martial arts against one another. Now, mixed martial arts is its own sport -- and one that's open to different kinds of athletes.

``Every body type in here is different -- there's guys in here that can do things that I will never do, just because their body will contort and they're limber and (have the) ability to take their leg and put their leg behind their head,'' McCarthy said. ``If I do that, you've got to pick me up and take me to the hospital.''

Rener Gracie, 22, an instructor at the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Torrance, is a member of the renown Gracie family of Brazilian jujitsu fighters. Gracie's father, Rorion, co-founded the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993 to showcase his family's brand of jujitsu.

Gracie family members have opened schools around the world, including the academy in Torrance where McCarthy trained.

``(McCarthy) had a law-enforcement background,'' Gracie said. ``So he was a very focused, very dedicated student, and was here for quite a few years.''

McCarthy's gym has enough memorabilia to entertain fans of the sport he helped popularize. Canvas mats from Ultimate Fighting Championship title fights hang from the walls, and big-name fighters who stop by will be asked to sign a giant scale roped off with a metal chain.

``It's a little history museum,'' McCarthy said.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) John McCarthy, who made a name for himself as the referee for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, opened his own gym, Big John McCarthy's Ultimate Training Academy in Valencia, where cleanliness is a priority.

(2 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) ``I always wanted to have an environment that was clean and healthy and had everything someone could actually need to become a good martial artist, or just a healthy person or a fighter,'' says John McCarthy,of Big John McCarthy's Ultimate Training Academy in Valencia.

(3 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) Big John McCarthy's Ultimate Training Academy offers training that mixes elements of Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, Thai kickboxing, karate, Western boxing and other styles.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer