Herb Dean is responding to those critical of his performance at UFC 306—specifically, his continuous calls for action in the bantamweight championship headliner between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili.
The battle between ‘Sugar’ and ‘The Machine’ saw a fair share of irregularities from the get-go, including an incident right out of the gate where Dean had to step in and warn O’Malley’s coach, Tim Welch, to stop coaching Dvalishvili—an antic he deployed when O’Malley KO’d Aljamain Sterling in Boston last year.
It looks like Sean O'Malley's coach, Tim Welch, was back to his old tricks against Merab Dvalishvili 🫣😅#UFC306 #NocheUFC pic.twitter.com/glYtUscjaf
— UFC on TNT Sports (@ufcontnt) September 15, 2024
After that, Dean was, in what we can only assume was a career-first, forced to admonish Dvalishvili for kissing his opponent on the back during a grappling exchange.
However, the most frustrating part of the fight was Dean’s constant call for action. Throughout a majority of the later rounds, the tenured UFC referee was telling the fighters to fight, even when that’s exactly what they were doing. If Dvalishvili was dominating on the mat, he’d tell him to work harder. If O’Malley was on his feet headhunting, Dean would tell him to pick up the pace.
It became so frequent that even the commentary team that night, Joe Rogan, Jon Anik, and Daniel Cormier, voiced their confusion.
Herb dean need to be fired he a referee trying to encourage Sean Omally to work harder never seen before #UFC306 pic.twitter.com/IEWnQLsOHB
— unbiasedbox (@unbiasedbox) September 15, 2024
As expected, Dean became public enemy No. 1 on social media with fight fans once again calling for him to be relieved of his duties.
Herb Dean Explains His Actions
During a recent interview with Helen Yee, Dean responded to the backlash and explained that staying active and fighting for a finish is part of the rule set that he was simply trying to enforce.
“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.”
Dean also offered some insight into the situation between Dvalishvili and Tim Welch in the opening seconds of the main event and why he stepped in.
“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 said. “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.
“It happens, and we do address it. It’s been happening as long as the sports have been here, you know what I mean. Even coaching the referee through the fighter, ‘Okay, 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.”
Watch the full interview below:
