Veteran referee Herb Dean responds to critics of his refereeing in the Merab Dvalishvili vs. Sean O’Malley title fight at UFC 306.
It’s rare for MMA referees to speak about their job performance or provide explanations about their actions in the cage. However, veteran referee [autotag]Herb Dean[/autotag] is one of the few.
Dean came under fire by people on social media and even UFC commentators Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier for several of his actions while officiating [autotag]Merab Dvalishvili[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] bantamweight title fight – which headlined UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas on Sept. 14.
For starters, in the first few seconds, Dvalishvili (18-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC) and O’Malley’s corner man, [autotag]Tim Welch[/autotag], were yelling at each other as the fight was going on. Dean stopped the action and ordered Welch to cut it out.
“I’m not here to be anyone’s parent or anything, and we want people’s personalities to be able to shine. That’s what makes our sport fun,” Dean told Helen Yee when asked about ordering Welch to stop addressing Dvalishvili. “We have some great personalities, but there is a rule that the seconds (cornermen) are not to interfere in the fight, and that includes trying to influence the referee. It specifies that, and you definitely can’t influence the other fighter or distract them. Your job is to coach the fighter, and my job is to do something about it.”
Although some took issue with Dean policing Welch’s trash-talking tactics, Dean said he was well within his right to act on it.
“It happens, and we do address it,” Dean explained. “It’s been happening as long as the sports have been here, you know what I mean. Even coaching the referee through the fighter, ‘OK, Herb is going to stand you up because all he wants to do is hold you, and he’s a boring, b*tch ass wrestler,’ and you know they try to coach me through coaching their fighter, and we know it. If it gets to be too much, we’ll say, ‘Hey, that’s a little excessive.’ It’s in the rules, and that’s what the rule is for.”
Not long after the bizarre trash-talking incident, another occurred.
At the end of Round 2, Dvalishvili had O’Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in a front headlock against the cage and decided to kiss O’Malley’s back multiple times before letting him go and walking away in the final seconds. An upset O’Malley stood up and swung at a distracted Dvalishvili before the bell rang.
Dean also interfered but this time issued a warning to Dvalishvili.
“Yes, yes, and that falls under sportsmanlike conduct. It does.” Dean said regarding the kisses. “Abusive language and things like that you’re not supposed to do.”
Toward the end of the bout, Dean kept telling Dvalishvili to work as he was moving away from O’Malley, who was looking to land a big shot and not let the fight go to the judges’ scorecards.
Many took issue with Dean’s comments calling for action, especially Rogan, who voiced his disapproval on the broadcast.
“I’ve seen on social media people have spoken on me about calling the fighters to do more action, and that’s what I’ve always done,” Dean said. “I can tell you what I tell fighters in the rules briefing, I tell them anytime that I’m going to have an intervention, I’m going to talk to you first. If I’m going to stand you up, I’m going to say, ‘Let’s work,’ or I’ll clap.
“That means that what I’m expecting is not busy work, I’m looking for effort to finish the fight. So you either posture or you can potentially set up fight ending attacks or advance your position or effort to advance, or pass the position … That rule was put in, standing up, to make our sport look like we want it to look.”
Herb Dean de la UFC es uno de los réferis con mayor experiencia y más reconocidos réferis de las artes marciales mixtas, pero después frenas dos peleas controvercialmente tarde en las peleas preliminares de la noche de peleas de UFC en la Fight …
Herb Dean de la UFC es uno de los réferis con mayor experiencia y más reconocidos réferis de las artes marciales mixtas, pero después frenas dos peleas controvercialmente tarde en las peleas preliminares de la noche de peleas de UFC en la Fight Island el sábado por la noche, los comentaristas de la UFC y peleadores que veían el show, criticaron abiertamente la falta de acción de Dean.
El primer final de competencia fue en la pelea de pesos pesados entres Tanner Boser y Paphael Pessoa. Pessoa recibió un golpe en el ojo y cayó de espaldas sobre la lona, permitiendo que Boser saltara sobre él y dejara caer varios golpes mientras que Pessoa no hacía ningún intento por escapar o regresar el golpe. Dean no frenó la pelea hasta que Boser conectó nueve golpes consecutivos sobre Pessoa, quien yacía en el suelo.
Más adelante en el programa, el peso ligero Francisco Trinaldo conectó un golpe en la cabeza de Jai Herbert, que pareció haber knockeado a Herbert incluso antes de que éste tocara la lona. Trinaldo dudó al ver a Herbert despotegido en el suelo, pero Dean no hizo la señal de que la pelea estaba terminada, lo que forzó a Trinaldo a dar unos golpes más a un Herbert desubicado, hasta que el réferi finalmente paró la pelea.
El comentarista Dan Hardy gritó “¡paren la pelea!” en la transmisión justo antes de que Dean entrata a proteger a Herbert. Paul Felder dijo después que el retraso en para la pelea lo hizo enfurecer.
Peleadores de la UFC y fans acudieron a Twitter para reclamar a Dean su lenta reacción por frenar tarde las peleas.
Más adelanté, Dean compartió un video en Instagram donde explica que aún está convencido sobre haber detenido la pelea cuando o hizo. Lo que él criticó fue que Dan Hardy “se pusiera la camiseta de Superman” y gritara en que la pelea se detuviera, ya que él no estaba en la posición de hacer una solicitud así. Solo el réferi puede decidir cuándo frenar una pelea, y únicamente el médico presente y el equipo de los peleadores pueden recomendar que una pelea se frene ya que ellos podrían conocer detalles de la salud de los peleadores que quizás Dean no sabe.
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.
There was some serious controversy on the UFC prelim card on Saturday.
UFC referee Herb Dean is one of the most experienced and recognizable referees in the sport of MMA, but after two controversial late stoppages on the prelim card of a UFC Fight Night event on Fight Island Saturday night, UFC commentators and fighters watching the show openly criticized Dean’s inaction.
The first contested finish came in a heavyweight bout between Tanner Boser and Raphael Pessoa. Pessoa took a blow to the eye and fell back to the canvas, allowing Boser to pounce and unload while Pessoa made no effort to escape or fight back. Dean didn’t wave off the bout until Boser had connected with nine consecutive shots with Pessoa on the ground.
Later in the card, lightweight Francisco Trinaldo dropped Jai Herbert with a shot to the top of the head, which appeared to knock Herbert out before he hit the ground. Trinaldo hesitated with Herbert on the ground unprotected, but Dean did not signal that the fight was over, forcing Trinaldo to pummel a dazed Herbert until Dean finally stopped the bout. Commentator Dan Hardy screamed “stop the fight!” on the broadcast just before Dean stepped in to protect Herbert. Paul Felder said that the late stoppage pissed him off.
Herb Dean wildin’… He need to see you leave this plane of existence to stop a fight tonight… Also Dan Hardy better watch his volume before him and Herb are scrapping by the broadcast table
Five years ago today, Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier finally fought for the first time, but it was far from the end of the story.
They hurled expletives, executives, and shoes – and that was just the pre-fight press conference.
Then on Jan. 3, 2015, the world’s top two light heavyweights finally stepped in the cage at UFC 182 in a battle for supremacy that would pit their opposing styles and personalities – in fact, their entirely different ways of being – against one another.
Did it settle anything? Yes and no. [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] was still the UFC light-heavyweight champ in the end. [autotag]Daniel Cormier[/autotag] went home with the first loss of his pro career. Any hope that they might bury the hatchet and end up as unlikely friends evaporated when Jones went on the FOX Sports 1 post-event show to express his sincere hope that Cormier was “somewhere crying right now,” which in fact he was.
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier’s back
What looked at first like it might be the end of a bitter rivalry turned out instead to be the end of the beginning. Within a matter of months, Cormier would be champ and Jones would be jailed. And the carousel still wasn’t done spinning.
The story of how this great rivalry started is so dumb that it has to be true. According to both men, they first came face to face backstage at a UFC event in 2010. Cormier was the Olympic wrestler new to MMA and competing as a heavyweight. Jones was the wunderkind on his way to the UFC light-heavyweight title.
“I came up to (Cormier) with a big smile on my face,” Jones recalled later. “He’s another black guy in the sport, and I felt the need to say hello to him, and I was just like ‘Hey man, I hear you’re a great wrestler’ and all this stuff. And he’s like ‘Yeah, yeah, you don’t know who I am?’ I’m like ‘No, I don’t know who you are, but my coaches were telling me that you wrestle on the Olympic level.’ And I was like ‘I bet you that I could take you down.’ It was my way of trying to develop a new friendship, and he just took it so seriously, and he was just so offended that I didn’t know who he was, and from that moment on, he decided that there was a beef between us.”
Cormier, while not disputing the essential facts of Jones’ version of their first meeting, remembered the incident somewhat differently.
“What I said was, ‘How do you break the ice by insulting someone?’” Cormier said. “That’s the only problem I had. It was the first time he and I ever interacted. He walked up to me, a very tall individual. He looked down on me and started to make derogatory comments toward me, talking about how he could take me down easy and stuff. … You don’t even know who I am, guy!”
They’d get acquainted soon enough. Jones became the youngest champ in UFC history the following year, while Cormier entered the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix as an alternate and then won the whole thing in 2012 shortly after the UFC’s parent company purchased the promotion.
But heavyweight was a fraught prospect for Cormier in the UFC. His friend and teammate Cain Velasquez was the on-again, off-again champion, and he worried that he was too small to hang around in the division longterm. Before defeating Roy Nelson in his second bout with the UFC, Cormier announced he’d be moving down a division for his next fight. That plan seemed almost guaranteed to put him on a collision course with Jones.
Still, it took an injury to Alexander Gustafsson to finally bring the men together. After the Swedish contender withdrew from his planned rematch with Jones at UFC 178, Cormier, who by then had racked up two straight wins at 205 pounds, was more than happy to step in.
To promote the fight, the UFC scheduled them for a press conference in the lobby of MGM Grand in Las Vegas that August. Normally this would have been the kind of thing that Dana White would have presided over, but the UFC president was en route to Bali for a family vacation, according to former UFC Vice President of Public Relations Dave Sholler, who filled in for him that day.
Jon Jones, Dave Sholler and Daniel Cormier
The press conference went well right up until Jones and Cormier came together for the customary photo op face-off at the end. As Sholler recalled later, there was something about the way Jones strode across the stage with the belt over his shoulder.
“I’ll never forget going, ‘This doesn’t feel right,’” Sholler said.
When Jones took off his sunglasses and stepped close to Cormier, pressing his forehead into the challenger’s face, Cormier put both hands on Jones’ neck and shoved him back (watch above). Jones didn’t hesitate to respond, dropping his title belt and advancing on Cormier, pausing just long enough to throw Sholler out of the way when he tried to intervene.
“The one thing I remember is grabbing Jon Jones by the bicep and for some reason thinking I was going to stop him,” Sholler said later.
[lawrence-related id=261242]
He didn’t. Few people on earth could have in that moment. And while several flooded the stage to try, Jones let fly with a left hand as the melee swirled off the stage and onto the lobby floor. Cormier would later throw a shoe in Jones’ general direction, just to give you a sense of how quickly all sense of order broke down.
Even when they were separated for an ESPN interview later on, the enmity boiled over – both on- an off-air – with Jones waffling between his public and private personas as he taunted an incredulous Cormier:
[jwplayer uTtf6JLL-RbnemIYZ]
For the UFC, it was a godsend. The press-conference brawl hyped the fight almost to the point of ruining it (Jones was later fined by the Nevada State Athletic Commission and assigned community service as punishment), and the end result was a media frenzy that only drew more attention to the pairing, all while producing more incendiary footage for future use.
Unfortunately for the UFC, an injury to Jones forced a postponement, moving the bout from UFC 178 to UFC 182. By that time, some of the mainstream interest in the fight may have cooled. But for the fighters, it was still easily the biggest bout of either man’s career.
The fight went down at MGM Grand Garden Arena, the same building where they’d brawled in the lobby some four months earlier. The promos for the event featured Cormier explaining that his journey through MMA was a search for the man who would prove to be his equal.
The first indication that he may have found it came in the fight’s opening minute, when Jones caught a Cormier kick and then swept his other leg out from under him. It was the first takedown Cormier had ever conceded in his 16-fight pro career.
Jon Jones
For Cormier, it soon became apparent that the challenge would be not just getting inside Jones’ famous reach, but doing damage once he got there. He spent much of the early part of the fight trying to bull his way past the sharp elbows and stinging left hands of Jones, only to get hammered by knees when he managed to get close.
Still, by the end of the first round, Cormier was finding his range and landing punches. In the second he started attacking Jones’ body with kicks and knees, and Jones consented to spend more time fighting in close where Cormier could reach him.
“That’s the dog fight I want!” Cormier’s coach Javier Mendez told him in the corner between rounds.
But Jones was unrelenting. He attacked with kicks from distance, with elbows in close. He suffocated Cormier against the fence in the clinch, and little by little he seemed to be taking over the fight.
When he came back to his corner before the fourth, Cormier’s coaches implored him to increase his output.
“Do you want this?” Mendez asked.
“I’m trying,” Cormier replied.
Daniel Cormier
But as the fight wore on, the variety of Jones’ attacks seemed to wear on Cormier. He took Cormier down two more times in the fourth round, then threw him to the mat a third time at the horn.
Cormier’s coaches, clad in T-shirts that read “Break Bones,” informed him that he needed to finish Jones if he wanted to win. An exhausted Cormier could only nod his head before marching back into the battle he was now clearly losing.
In the final minute of the fifth, Cormier finally managed a takedown only to have Jones immediately pop back to his feet. When he kept trying to dig for a single-leg takedown in the last seconds of the fight, Jones smiled and raised his fists, celebrating rather than defending.
When Cormier gave up on the takedown just before the horn, Jones snapped back into the fight just long enough to sneak in a couple more punches before it ended. A frustrated Cormier fired back after the horn, nearly clipping referee Herb Dean with a right hand. Jones responded in the universal language of pro wrestling gestures.
The scorecards were no surprise. All three judges gave the fight to Jones with scores of 49-46. In his post-fight interview, Jones encouraged the people who’d bought Cormier’s “Break Bones” shirts to seek a refund.
“See what this shirt says?” Jones asked, gesturing to his own. “By Reebok, it says ‘unbroken.’ This team is unbroken. And still.”
As he gloated over his takedown edge in the fight, Jones paused just long enough to apologize for his own behavior.
“I’m sorry I’m being classless right now,” he said. “I do not like ‘DC,’ and this is why I’m being this way.”
He would continue taunting his beaten opponent in further post-fight interviews. Cormier found his way backstage, where he was embraced by his teammate Velasquez while UFC cameras watched.
[lawrence-related id=138987]
At the time, the fight seemed to close an important chapter. Jones was the better fighter. Cormier was stuck in second place. Secure in this knowledge, we could all move on.
The picture was complicated when, three days after the fight, NSAC executive director Bob Bennett confirmed that Jones had tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine in the weeks before the bout. The news was paired with an announcement that Jones would enter rehab, where he wound up staying for all of one night.
That April, Jones would be arrested following a hit-and-run accident in Albuquerque, N.M., that left a pregnant woman with a broken arm. This was bad news for his next planned title defense against Anthony Johnson. Soon after, the UFC announced that Jones had been stripped of the belt and suspended “indefinitely.”
The title fight at UFC 187 in May, however, would go on as planned. But with Jones out of the picture, Cormier again got the call. This time, he went home with the belt. He’d wind up keeping it for two more years, right up until he met Jones in the rematch at UFC 214, where he was knocked out in the third round.
At least, that was the preliminary result, until it was announced that Jones had failed another drug test – this time for the steroid Turinabol. Just like that, thanks to another Jones screwup, Cormier was champion again. And so the carousel spun around again. It is spinning still.
“Today in MMA History” is an MMAjunkie series created in association with MMA History Today, the social media outlet dedicated to reliving “a daily journey through our sport’s history.”
