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Ever since “Big” John McCarthy returned to refereeing, the MMA community has collectively been calling for his return to the sport’s biggest promotion. Well, it’s not the UFC, but the CSAC has assigned Big John to his first Zuffa card in years, WEC 46 on Jan. 10 in Sacramento. What’s odd is “Big” John won’t be reffing any of the bouts, he’ll be judging them.

The California State Athletic Commission today released its list of assignments for the Jan. 10 WEC show in Sacramento, and there’s a surprising name on the list: popular long-time referee “Big” John McCarthy has been assigned to the show. Even more surprising is the news that McCarthy has not been assigned as a referee for the show, but as a judge.

It’s a step in the right direction, but as a judge? Big John understands the rules and intricacies of MMA as well as anyone so I’m sure he’ll make a fine judge, but wouldn’t he be better served as a ref? If you have Peyton Manning on your team, do you not put him in at quarterback?

EA Sports MMA executive producer Dale Jackson and “Big” John McCarthy talk to Gamespot about the upcoming title from EA Tiburon.

Ariel Helwani caught up with”Big” John McCarthy this past weekend at the EA Sport MMA press conference. Big John talked about signing on as the featured referee in EA’s first MMA game, his relationship with the UFC and Dana White and what he thinks about the current state of refereeing and judging in the sport.

The latest addition to the EA Sports MMA roster is not a fighter, it’s a referee. Perhaps you’ve heard of him…Mr. “Big” John McCarthy. You know what this means? No criminally late stoppages like we’ve seen in that other game.

It was worth a shot, but ultimately the Big John Twitter bomb didn’t make the impact we were hoping for.

Referee “Big” John McCarthy will be conspicuously absent from UFC 104 this Saturday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The 15-year officiating veteran, who’s logged in nearly 600 fights worldwide dating back to UFC 2 and has a long background in helping shape the sport’s current rules, was not assigned by the California State Athletic Commission to work the event.

“I contacted (the CSAC) and told them I was free on Oct. 24,” McCarthy told Sherdog.com Friday. McCarthy said he was later informed that he hadn’t been assigned to the event, the UFC’s first in California since UFC 76 in November 2007. McCarthy did not comment any further on the development.

And why was Big John not assigned to work UFC 104? Here’s the CSAC’s Dave Thornton with their official explanation.

“McCarthy is a licensed referee in California and as such is on our regular rotation list for MMA refs,” Thornton wrote. “McCarthy is assigned to a Strikeforce show in November in Fresno.”

Oh that makes sense. Lets not assign our best referee to work one of the biggest events California will see all year because his name isn’t next on the rotation.

Hooray for government and politics. Once again, they prevail over common sense.

In a perfect world, all “Big” John McCarthy had to do to become a licensed referee once again in the State of Nevada was apply. And he did. Being widely regarded as by far the best referee in mixed martial arts, his approval by the NSAC should merely be a formality, right?

Unfortunately no word yet if Dana had any kind of favorable reaction to the Big John Twitter Bomb.

Alright, I think we can all agree that Big John McCarthy should be back in the UFC doing what he does best, no? He’s licensed in California and UFC 104 is happening in LA. All that needs to happen for Big John to work the event is an assignment from the CSAC.

Okay, with that out of the way, Fightlinker came up with a plan to make it happen. Today, everybody is telling Dana White on Twitter to bring back Big John. Yes, we know Dana doesn’t pick the refs, at least not in the US, but he’s still influential with the athletic commissions, plus CSAC head Bill Douglas isn’t chatting it up with fans on the the internet’s latest social networking craze. Dana seems to be pretty receptive these days to what the fans are asking for, so I say it’s worth a shot.

All you have to do is copy and paste the following tweet into your Twitter box and hit enter.

@danawhiteufc BRING BACK BIG JOHN! #UFC

MDS doesn’t think it will work, and maybe he’s right, but seriously, it takes two seconds to do, one if you’re good. It’s at least worth that, isn’t it?

I’ve had a pretty crummy day. You know, one of those days when nothing goes right, and it just puts you in a bad mood. Well, thank god for the Sylvia-Mercer story, because this latest development just made it much better.