{"id":681672,"date":"2026-05-19T22:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681672\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T22:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:10:08","slug":"aljamain-sterling-awful-referee-herb-dean-should-be-demoted-to-minor-leagues-after-mvp-mma-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681672\/","title":{"rendered":"Aljamain Sterling: \u2018Awful referee\u2019 Herb Dean should be demoted to minor leagues after MVP MMA controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aljamain Sterling can\u2019t believe the decision Herb Dean made at Saturday\u2019s MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano event\u2014and that he won\u2019t face any repercussions for it.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest talking points coming out of the Rousey vs. Carano preliminary card was Phumi Nkuta\u2019s submission loss to Adriano Moraes. In the closing seconds of their fight, Moraes had Nkuta in a rear-naked choke, but it appeared the final bell rang before Moraes could finish the submission.<\/a> However, Moraes held on to the choke and Nkuta briefly passed out, leading to an official review of whether Nkuta had actually lost consciousness before the bell.<\/p>\n

It was eventually ruled that Nkuta was out prior to time running out on the bout and Moraes was awarded a submission victory. That sequence of events doesn\u2019t sit well with Sterling, a training partner of Nkuta\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHerb Dean, awful, awful referee,\u201d Sterling said on The Weekly Scraps<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m tired of these people coping, saying \u2018the gold standard.\u2019 \u2026 Herb Dean is a good dude. I\u2019m not going to say he\u2019s a bad person because he\u2019s a bad ref. But he\u2019s a bad ref. He\u2019s a bad ref.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s not an easy job, but when you consistently mess up like that, it\u2019s rough. It\u2019s hard for someone to keep constantly trying to back you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Moraes vs. Nkuta bout was closely contested, but the official scorecard<\/a> showed that Nkuta was up 20-18 heading into Round 3, meaning even if Moraes had won the final round, Nkuta would have won a split decision. Due to Dean\u2019s call, the judges were removed from the equation.<\/p>\n

Dean was not solely responsible for the ruling as he reviewed the footage of ending of the fight alongside members of the New Jersey athletic commission, including fellow referee Mike Beltran. It should be noted Dean and Beltran have been involved in several officiating controversies<\/a> in recent years and in the eyes of Sterling, this was just the latest debacle involving the veteran referees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all converse in a circle like a little hut, I\u2019m watching these guys, it\u2019s like \u2018The Five Stooges,\u2019\u201d Sterling said. \u201cYou guys mean to tell me not one of you understands jiu-jitsu and how chokes work? Adriano Moraes held on to the choke after the bell at minimum two seconds. Squeezing. Herb\u2019s trying to pull him off and you\u2019re telling me you think he went out before the bell?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it took five of you guys, the five amigos to sit around the TV replay after replay and you guys cannot see and Herb being in there couldn\u2019t tell his one arm was trapped. The other one was trying to fight the hands. He was moving before the bell was up. Not moving after the bell when Adriano finally decided to let go. That should have been a disqualification just there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sterling isn\u2019t just frustrated with Dean, but with the system that protects him and other ineffective officials from facing any consequences. He believes that were it not for Dean being so firmly entrenched in the officiating fraternity, there could be methods to punish him and also potentially bring in fresh faces better equipped to handle high-level fights.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have politics, everything for some reason, it\u2019s just a good old boys club where you get in and once you\u2019re in, it\u2019s almost impossible to get you out,\u201d Sterling said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like joining the union or if you get tenure in the school system out here. You\u2019ve just got to work, not doing anything crazy for two, three years, and once you get tenure, you can just be the worst and they\u2019re going to back you and protect you. And I love that, but it gets to a certain point where you can\u2019t protect someone anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not calling for Herb Dean to get fired, but there should be a review. He should get demoted to lower levels of competition. These are big stakes, events, and careers that we\u2019re talking about, and there\u2019s got to be some better people that are working their way up that haven\u2019t gotten a shot yet or some people that are a bit more knowledgeable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aljamain Sterling can\u2019t believe the decision Herb Dean made at Saturday\u2019s MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano event\u2014and that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,270175,324901,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-681672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-mvp-mma","tag-mvp-mma-news","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681672","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=681672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}