Dana White, the president of the UFC, has been raging about what Herb Dean did during his referee stint at The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale. Dean is one of the longstanding, most visible referees in the promotion and events shouldn’t go down like that under the supervision of a veteran referee. However, it looks like he had some bad decisions that night.
The MMA promotion president said that he went crazy during the final moments of the show where they had to put in a last minute replacement on one of the MMA fighters where finalist Artem Lobov went against Ryan Hall instead.
Ryan Hall had to fill in the slot that was supposedly for Saul Rogers, who has a record of 10-1 MMA and 0-0 UFC. What’s ironic is that Rogers actually won over Hall during the show’s quarterfinals. Hall, who is currently holding a record of 5-1 MMA and 1-0 UFC, faced Lobov (11-11-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) that night and emerged victorious by unanimous decision.
The said lightweight fight was a co-headliner during the The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale held at The Chelsea in Las Vegas. The whole event was aired on FOX Sports 1.
Dana White was visibly irritated during the post-event interview, but it wasn’t about what everybody thought. Apparently, White was irked about the what took place during the third round of the bout where Hall went on Lobov’s back and held a standing back mount. Lobov attempted to prevent Hall’s hands to avoid a choke from taking place, but he didn’t try to get out causing a long stalemate during the fight.
“What drove me crazy was Herb Dean let him stay on (Lobov’s) back for the last three minutes standing. No damage is being done. Nobody was really advancing their position, and this is for everything. This is for ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ Stand it back up, and I think Herb, who I think is one of the best, I think he didn’t do his best tonight. I saw a lot of people talking negatively about (Hall). One of the thing about this kid, with his jiu-jitsu, it’s so sick and so high-level, you haven’t seen a guy who can go and slide in and take a leg. He goes from one thing to the other. If he’d pulled off one of those submissions, people wouldn’t be b-tching about it, which is one of the reasons I think Herb should have allowed them to fight for the last three minutes. There was no fighting for the last three minutes. There was no fighting for the last three minutes of the fight. That’s irritating, and that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth,” White said during the interview.
White clarified, however, that as The Ultimate Fighter will still go on as always. The event is known for getting new blood and fight against MMA veterans in order to land a UFC contract.