{"id":544797,"date":"2026-03-16T21:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544797\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T21:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:11:12","slug":"dominick-cruz-settles-beef-with-referee-keith-peterson-six-years-after-controversial-ufc-249-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544797\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominick Cruz settles beef with referee Keith Peterson six years after controversial UFC 249 loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz appeared to end his long-standing feud with one of MMA\u2019s veteran referees, Keith Peterson.<\/p>\n<p>Dominick Cruz ended his illustrious UFC career abruptly ahead of his planned retirement fight at UFC Seattle last year. Cruz, who was supposed to fight Rob Font in the card\u2019s co-main event, withdrew from the bout due to a significant shoulder injury that required surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz would go on to announce his formal retirement days after his UFC Seattle pullout, and has since transitioned full-time to his broadcasting career. He\u2019s one of the UFC\u2019s top analysts and is a frequent presence for some of the biggest UFC cards.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being away from the Octagon, Cruz still possesses a feisty fighting spirit. His UFC bantamweight title loss to Henry Cejudo at UFC 249, the promotion\u2019s first event with an empty arena during COVID-19, is still one of Cruz\u2019s common talking points.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz lost by TKO to Cejudo in his bid to become a three-time UFC bantamweight champion, protesting the stoppage immediately after the fight with referee Keith Peterson. Six years later, Cruz remains critical of Peterson and his controversial stoppage at UFC 249.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Cruz\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-x-rated-rant-referee-keith-peterson-controversial-stoppage\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">repeated attacks on Peterson<\/a>, one of the UFC\u2019s most experienced referees, things between the two sides appeared to hit a cordial note when they reunited at UFC Vegas 114.<\/p>\n<p>Dominick Cruz teases beef-squashing podcast with referee Keith Peterson<\/p>\n<p>In a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DV6MRD4lK6L\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Instagram<\/a> post, Cruz shared a photo of himself and Keith Peterson facing off and sharing a cordial moment cageside at UFC Vegas 114.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can run \u2013 but you can\u2019t hide,\u201d Cruz posted. \u201cWill Keith Peterson come on the podcast?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cruz launched his podcast, titled \u2018Love and War\u2019, earlier this year, featuring interviews with former rivals TJ Dillashaw, Urijah Faber, and others. It could be a matter of time until we see Peterson appear on Cruz\u2019s show to explain his rationale behind the UFC 249 stoppage.<\/p>\n<p>Was Dominick Cruz robbed at UFC 249 against Henry Cejudo? Let us know your thoughts on the stoppage in the comments!<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz appeared to end his long-standing feud with one of MMA\u2019s veteran referees,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,73126,786,92485,92486,785,85,787],"class_list":["post-544797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dominick-cruz","tag-fighting","tag-henry-cejudo","tag-keith-peterson","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}