YouTube<\/a> channel, Volkanovski explained why he thinks Pereira\u2019s protests are justified.<\/p>\n\u201cGane did great, fought great,\u201d Volkanovski said. \u201cWas he getting the finish anyway? Probably, but was there back of the head shots? Yes, there was. Could there be a different outcome if you hurt Pereira\u2014because he was obviously doing the right stuff to recover, so he\u2019s on his way to recover until there was a lot of other shots and I explained where I thought them shots were landing. And then he was getting wobbled and wobbled and you get the direct contact on the brain like that, so that\u2019s going to be hard to recover from. That\u2019s a tricky one. \u2026 I\u2019m trying to be really nice about this because I don\u2019t want to throw shade on people, but I mean, there was a lot of back-of-the-head shots. A lot of them. To be honest, if it was someone that I didn\u2019t like that did that, I\u2019d probably be a lot more clear with how I\u2019m saying this, because there was a lot of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he does one or two, do you disqualify a guy for that, no, because he\u2019s going for the finish, that\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Volkanovski added. \u201cBut when there\u2019s more than that, alright, something should have been said by the ref. We need to have that discussion and we\u2019re having that discussion. And if Pereira\u2019s asking for people to speak about it, here I am. I\u2019m not taking away from Gane, but that instance, we need to have conversations about that because that was pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second round of their fight, Gane wobbled Pereira with a hard jab, prompting the former two-division champion to dive for one of Gane\u2019s legs in an attempt to recover. Gane continued to throw heavy punches, with several appearing to land in an illegal area on the back of Pereira\u2019s head, but Dean did not make any indication that the action should be paused.<\/p>\n
Volkanovski isn\u2019t sure how Dean missed the illegal strikes during the prolonged sequence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was watching and being like, \u2018Far out, that\u2019s a lot of back-of-the-head shots,\u2019 Volkanovski said. \u201cI get it\u2019s going to happen when you\u2019re going for it, but the ref, I think he should have been pulling him up as he\u2019s doing it. I was trying to look when he was doing it. This is how long it was actually happening for. Again, I don\u2019t want to take nothing away from Gane, but obviously I\u2019m breaking down fights and this is what I seen.<\/p>\n
\u201dStraight away there was a lot of back-of-the-head shots, I thought. And the only things he could sort of do was these sort of shots because [Pereira\u2019s] head was high, some of his face was hidden on the leg, so [Gane] can maybe try and get around, but because he was deep on the single and he was trying to use this arm, getting around was hard, so it was like, \u2018I\u2019m not really going to get clean shots unless it\u2019s on the back of the head.\u2019 I feel, like, Gane maybe was he thinking, \u2018I want to hit him in the back of the head?\u2019 No, I don\u2019t think he was thinking that. I think he was trying to get around, but he wasn\u2019t in position that he could.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bulk of Pereira\u2019s complaint has been aimed at Dean, with the Brazilian star going as far as to say that Dean should face some sort of punishment. Volkanovski isn\u2019t as harsh with his criticism, but he is curious as to why the veteran referee declined to take any action in the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s out the window if you hit him once or twice [and the referee says] \u2018Back of the head, watch the back of the head,\u2019 Volkanovski said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m going to get disqualified here. I\u2019m not going to keep doing that.\u2019 Then it would have been harder for him to keep hurting him. So I can see why Pereira would be mad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to remember, Gane, this is going to happen with fighters,\u201d Volkanovski added. \u201cYou hurt someone, you\u2019re going for the finish, this stuff\u2019s going to happen. Because you\u2019re trying to go for the finish and you go for it. I\u2019m not saying Gane did it on purpose, but I felt like the ref, maybe you know Herb I love you, mate, but I feel like you should have been pretty vocal, watch the back of the head. I remember looking and seeing a couple of them and he wasn\u2019t. He\u2019s not even telling him to watch the back of the head, I\u2019m like, what\u2019s going on here? Maybe the angle was a bad angle for him, but that\u2019s how many back-of-the-head shots was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira has the support of fellow UFC star Alexander Volkanovski. Since losing in his bid to claim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-755912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755912","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=755912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}