Tag: Dan Hardy

Dan Hardy says ‘someone’s gonna get it’ if he returns to the octagon

Former UFC welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy says he’s in great condition at 38, and says he’d make an impact if he returned to the UFC octagon following his long layoff from the sport.

Former UFC welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy says he’s in great condition at 38, and says he’d make an impact if he returned to the UFC octagon following his long layoff from the sport.

Dana White: Incidents like Dan Hardy vs. Herb Dean ‘can never happen’ in UFC again

“I want to make this very clear: If you work for me and you approach a judge or a referee or any type of official, I will fire you,”

LAS VEGAS – UFC president Dana White has come to the defense of referees and judges in the aftermath of the highly publicized spat between [autotag]Dan Hardy[/autotag] and Herb Dean.

After UFC commentator Hardy and veteran referee Dean had a verbal confrontation in the aftermath of what many believed to be a late stoppage in Francisco Trinaldo’s TKO of Jai Herbert at UFC on ESPN 14, White has drawn a line in the sand.

“I want to make this very clear: If you work for me, and you approach a judge or a referee or any type of official, I will fire you,” White told reporters, including MMA Junkie, on Friday. “You will lose your job. You will never work for me again if you do that. Nobody has the right to – listen, you want to criticize judges, you want to criticize referees, you didn’t agree with a decision or things like that – we love Dan. Dan got emotional. The problem is now with this setup it’s a lot easier to do. It’s a lot easier to interact with everybody, from the fighters to the refs to the media and everybody.

“If you work for me in any capacit,  and you approach a referee or judge or official, I will fire you that night on the spot. That can never happen here ever again.”

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White indicated he won’t take action against Hardy after the incident. However, it appears there’s going to be a zero tolerance policy moving forward. White said he was aware of Friday’s situation at the UEA Warriors 12 event in Abu Dhabi, where referee Marc Goddard was shoved and grabbed by a fighter who’d just choked his opponent but wouldn’t immediately release, leading to a disqualification.

It’s clear White doesn’t want that type of conduct to happen in the UFC, nor anything like what happened between Hardy and Dean. He said his message goes directly to Hardy, but it applies to everyone.

“I’m speaking to him right now,” White said. “I’m speaking to everybody. Don’t ever do it ever again. And if you’re a fighter, and you put your hands on or threaten any official, you will never, ever fight here again. Period.”

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Spinning Back Clique: Herb Dean. Dan Hardy. Who’s right about stoppage controversy?

Check out this week’s edition of “Spinning Back Clique,” which unpacks what went down at UFC on ESPN 14 and Bellator 242.

Welcome to “Spinning Back Clique,” MMA Junkie’s weekly show that takes a spin through the biggest topics in mixed martial arts. This week, Simon Head hosts and is joined by MMA Junkie Radio’s “Gorgeous” George and “Goze,” as well as MMA Junkie senior reporter Mike Bohn.

SHOW TOPICS

  • It all got a little heated cageside at UFC on ESPN 14 as [autotag]Dan Hardy[/autotag] and Herb Dean exchanged views after Francisco Trinaldo’s third-round TKO finish of Jai Herbert. Hardy clearly was livid at what he thought was an egregious late stoppage, but Dean has since come out and defended his handling of the fight, saying there was no late stoppage. It’s sparked a lot of debate, so whose side are you on in this situation? Team Dean or Team Hardy?
  • Former UFC middleweight champion [autotag]Robert Whittaker[/autotag] bounced back from his title defeat to Israel Adesanya as he returned from a nine-month layoff to outpoint Darren Till in Saturday night’s main event. Whittaker said afterward that he’s “championship-level,” but what did you make of his display, and do you think “Bobby Knuckles” will go on to eventually recapture the 185-pound strap?
  • Swedish grappling sensation [autotag]Khamzat Chimaev[/autotag] was the talk of “Fight Island” this past week after registering two stoppage wins in 10 days. Now the super confident Chimaev wants to mix it up with some of the division’s best and has vowed to “smash them all.” He even called out Demian Maia and challenged the Brazilian to see whose grappling is best. Are you aboard the Chimaev hype train, or does everyone need to slow down?
  • Saturday night’s event saw a ton of callouts, but one of the most interesting came from [autotag]Fabricio Werdum[/autotag]. The former UFC champion has beaten a who’s who of heavyweight greats, including [autotag]Fedor Emelianenko[/autotag]. After his victory over Alexander Gustafsson, “Vai Cavalo” said he wanted to face “The Last Emperor” one more time. Does this mean the free agent is a lock to join Bellator, or do you think there’s a better landing spot for him elsewhere? And is the Fedor rematch one that you’d be excited to see 10 years later?
  • Speaking of Bellator, the promotion was back in action this weekend with Bellator 242 marking its long-awaited emergence from the COVID-19 lockdown. It was only a seven-fight card, but there were some important victories on the night. Whose performance excited you the most on Friday night at Mohegan Sun, and what did you make of Bellator’s first show back?

For answers to all of those questions, watch Episode 39 of “Spinning Back Clique” above.

John McCarthy says Herb Dean was in no-win situation with controversial stoppage

“Could he have stopped it? He could have. But there would have been people complaining about him stopping it.”

Referee Herb Dean was under quite bit of scrutiny this past weekend at UFC on ESPN 14, but John McCarthy gives him the benefit of the doubt.

Dean received criticism for his stoppage of Francisco Trinaldo’s third-round TKO of Jai Herbert on Saturday’s card, which took place at Flash Forum at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Most notably from color commentator Dan Hardy, who was visibly upset and screamed for Dean to “stop the fight” as Trinaldo rained down a few extra punches after knocking Herbert down.

Hardy was then seen exchanging words with Dean after the fight and since then, has doubled down on his opinion that Dean failed to protect Herbert.

Dean on the other hand, believes that he didn’t make a bad call and that Hardy was out of line for interfering from his commentary position.

Current Bellator commentator and veteran official McCarthy, who began officiating at UFC 2 in 1994, offered a defense of Dean.

“Wasn’t as bad as what Dan Hardy made it out to be,” McCarthy said on his “Weighing In” podcast.

McCarthy broke down the sequence of events and believes that Trinaldo stopping after the knockdown, is what put Dean in a difficult situation.

“He was fighting really well, but Jai gets hit and the shot that hits him goes off basically the top of his forehead, the top of his head and you see him stumble back and fall the way he did. It’s like he got hit in the head with a hammer and as the referee, it’s one of those – it’s an oddity knockdown,” McCarthy said. “It’s not your norm. But when he falls how did he fall? He fell going backwards and was he still there? Doesn’t look like it.

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“But when Herb Dean sees him, he comes around and he sees him fall down like this and he sees him with his hands in a position that Herb is looking and saying (Herbert) can defend himself and Trinaldo stopped. Now Trinaldo stopped because he is a competitor, a sportsman and felt like he’s out. I shouldn’t have to hit him again, but he has to continue on. So the fact that Trinaldo didn’t immediately go after him, makes it now where Herb really can’t stop it, in a way, because he is saying he’s in a way to defend himself.”

McCarthy thinks Dean was in a lose-lose situation where had he stopped the fight right after Herbert went down, people would have also complained.

And in terms of Hardy’s criticism, McCarthy thinks the former UFC welterweight title challenger was emotionally invested and would have likely taken issue if he was the one in that position, and Dean decided to stop the fight right after the knockdown.

“Could he have stopped it? He could have,” McCarthy said. “But there would have been people complaining about him stopping it. There would have been people saying, ‘Oh, you didn’t give him the opportunity to try work his way out.’ So you’re in that, you can’t win.

“The fact that Dan Hardy is friends with Jai and likes him and watches him fight in England, he got all upset because his guy took extra shots and OK. But if Dan Hardy was the guy that got hit and went down and someone stopped it, he’d be standing up like Dominick Cruz, ‘You stopped it too soon.’ You can’t win.”

UFC senior vice president David Shaw revealed that the company plans to investigate the conflict between Dean and Hardy upon its return to Las Vegas.

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Herb Dean defends controversial stoppage, criticizes Dan Hardy putting on ‘Superman shirt’

Herb Dean stands by his stoppage of Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jai Herbert at UFC on ESPN 14 and had words for “Superman” Dan Hardy.

Referee Herb Dean does not believe he made a bad call in the Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jai Herbert fight at UFC on ESPN 14 and chastised color commentator [autotag]Dan Hardy[/autotag] for Dean interprets as interference in the bout.

Dean has been the recipient of criticism for the timing of his stoppage in Trinaldo’s third-round TKO of Herbert on Saturday’s card, which took place at Flash Forum at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Hardy was among the first to get on Dean for what he believed was a late stop.

After ripping Dean for failing to protect Herbert on the broadcast, the commentator and referee exchanged heated words face-to-face cageside at the conclusion of the contest. Hardy has since doubled down on his actions, reiterating that he was merely trying to stand up for fighter safety.

UFC officials, meanwhile, have noted the company plans to investigate the situation.

Sunday, Dean went public with his rebuttal. The veteran official said “by no means was that a late stoppage,” and explained how Hardy’s explicit yelling during the fight-ending sequence was both out of line and potentially dangerous.

“What I really want to get into right now is during the match someone yelled out, ‘Stop the fight,'” Dean said on Instagram. “It’s really interesting because there’s only professionals there and there’s not one fan in the building. Everybody has a job there, everybody knows what their job is and they have specific duties. I have a job to referee the fight, one of my duties is to stop the fight when the fighter’s taking too much damage. There’s two people who are authorized to advise me during that, to maybe yell out those words, ‘Stop the fight.’

“There’s one, the physician. We have a ringside physician who knows more about the physical body than I do. He’s there to give me advice. If he can’t get my attention maybe he might yell, ‘Stop the fight.’ Then there’s the fighter’s corner. They train with them, they know about them, they know more things about him than I do. They may know something I don’t know, so that’s why they would give me some advice to stop the fight. Ultimately to stop the fight is my decision. I don’t know who it was who did it because I was looking at the fight and and I had heard it, so I assumed it was either of the two people authorized to do it, the doctor or the corner.”

Dean continued to walk through the timeline of events from his perspective. He said he wasn’t aware Hardy was the one who was being so vocal until he was looped in by someone else cageside. It was at that point the exchange between the two occurred, and Dean once again said the former fighter-turned-commentator overstepped his bounds.

“After the match I followed up, I asked the physician he said, ‘No, that fight was fine. You were doing perfectly fine with everything you did in that match,'” Dean said. “I didn’t get a chance to ask his corner, but I asked the inspectors, who are in charge of his corner. They said, ‘No. The corner did not yell out to stop the match.’ That means it was someone else, someone else there to do a job. This is a very dangerous thing to do. If you put on your Superman shirt and decide that you’re the smartest person in the room, smarter than the physician, smarter than the corner who works with the guy and smarter than the referee, there’s a chance you could bring in information that could do the fighter a disservice.

“I’m looking at the match, I believe I’m getting information from the people qualified to do it. Under no circumstance would I, even as a referee, get up and yell to another referee to stop the match. If I were to do that I would know there would be a situation where I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. I know there could be consequences you would never see me in that position again, but I would sleep well knowing that I’d done that.”

The fight itself saw Herbert put in a strong effort over two rounds. Trinaldo turned the tide in the finally frame, landing a massive punch that sent Herbert to the canvas. It couldn’t been stopped there, as Dean rushed in to get a better look. He didn’t stop it, though, despite Trinaldo standing over a clearly dazed Herbert with his fist cocked.

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When it was obvious Dean wasn’t going to halt the action, Trinaldo reluctantly landed four additional punches before it was called off. Dean said he thinks his timing was just fine, and said Herbert did the right things to give himself a touch of extra leeway.

“The bottom line now if I have to look at that match, not looking at it to know if I should’ve stopped it early, because it’s easy,” Dean said. “Anyone who believes it’s not is just following because someone with a microphone says it should’ve been stopped. But if you know anything about fighting, the fighter got hurt, fighters get rocked all the time, but we’re looking at his actions. He’s tracking his opponent, he knows where his opponent is. He’s putting both arms between him and his opponent, he’s lifting his legs and head off the mat. He’s doing everything I could ask for to stay in that fight. So, it wasn’t a bad stoppage.

“But that person who is yelling out, that’s almost the same thing as if you would grab a horn and ring the horn as if you’re calling the time. It could easily be mistaken for the people who are officially qualified to yell, ‘Stop the fight.’ It should never be done. Food for thought.”

Herb Dean responds to UFC on ESPN 14 critics, Dan Hardy

Herb Dean issues a video response to criticism he received from Dan Hardy and others in the MMA community for his stoppage in the Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jai Herbert fight at UFC on ESPN 14.

Herb Dean issues a video response to criticism he received from Dan Hardy and others in the MMA community for his stoppage in the Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jai Herbert fight at UFC on ESPN 14.