There’s no question in John McCarthy’s mind that the knee Jeremy Stephens threw en route to knocking out Josh Emmett was illegal.

“Dominick Cruz and Michael Bisping sitting up there (and saying), ‘I don’t think it touched him’ – you’re wrong,” McCarthy told MMAjunkie Radio when asked about the controversial stoppage this past Saturday at UFC on FOX 28. “It touched him.”

The real question for the veteran referee turned Bellator commentator is how Stephens (28-14 MMA, 15-13 UFC) thought he could throw it in the first place.

“How do we get a fighter so confused over rules that they don’t know what the hell they can do or when they can do it? That’s our problem,” McCarthy said. “And that has been created by athletic commissions. We have a bunch of athletic commissions out there that have screwed things up because ‘I don’t like this rule, I want to be different.’ And you being different has screwed over every fighter there is. Congratulations, you’re the ones that create this problem.”

To elaborate, several athletic commissions don’t recognize the most current version of the unified rules, which has created a mishmash of rule sets for UFC events held around the world. The variance is so pronounced, the promotion is forced to remind fans whether the new or old version of the unified rules is in place from city to city.

Much of the controversy at UFC on FOX 28 centered not around the rules, but whether or not the illegal knee strike made contact with Emmett’s head and whether a series of elbows contacted the back of his head, which is an illegal target. Emmett (13-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) plans to appeal the official result.

Stephens claimed to get the go-ahead from referee Dan Miragliotta before the fight to employ the knee he used against Emmett. If that was the case, however, Miragliotta would’ve approved a technique that was illegal under the unified rules and those in Florida. When a fighter’s knee is on the canvas, as Emmett’s was, he’s a downed opponent.

UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, on duty along Cruz and Bisping as a commentator at UFC on FOX 28, argued passionately that the knee made contact with Emmett’s head as Stephens’ leg returned to the floor. Cruz and Bisping argued the knee missed.

McCarthy is insistent that Stephens’ knee made contact. When Emmett’s ears flapped as the strike went by his head, he said, it demonstrated the kinetic force of contact. Whether or not Stephens’ knee made contact on the back end of the strike is irrelevant.

McCarthy cited UFC middleweight Yoel Romero’s knockout of Chris Weidman at UFC 205 as a situation where a legal knee made illegal contact with the back of Weidman’s head and was unavoidable due to Weidman and Romero’s body positions.

“There’s going to be a re-chamber,” McCarthy said. When the knee comes up, it’s coming back. And we can’t go off of it coming back. It’s, does it hit him when it’s being brought forward as a tool to end this fight? It absolutely hits him.

“The question is, did it hurt him? No. I don’t believe that’s what hurt him. What hurt him was a beautiful left hook, then a couple elbows. … It puts him down.”

As the finishing sequence played out in real time, McCarthy believes Miragliotta simply wasn’t sure whether one illegal technique – a knee to a downed opponent – really made contact.

“Just the action itself tells you that’s illegal,” McCarthy said. “But you’ve got to say, the action, and did it touch him? (Those) are the two questions, as the referee, that you’ve got to put together. Dan knows the action is illegal. His question is, ‘Did that touch him? I’m not sure.’ That’s what I’m going to go with. ‘I’m not sure it touched him, and if I’m not sure, I don’t want to stop this action, because I can’t say that it did touch him.’ And he let the action go.”

McCarthy doesn’t believe Stephens is a dirty fighter for throwing the knee. In the heat of the moment, the MMA veteran simply capitalized on a hurt opponent.

The bigger issue is the confusion that’s been created by an uneven playing ground.

For complete coverage of UFC on FOX 28, check out the UFC Events section of the site.