{"id":782201,"date":"2026-07-06T07:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782201\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T07:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:40:18","slug":"charles-oliveira-is-the-latest-ufc-fighter-to-question-herb-deans-officiating-he-should-have-stepped-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782201\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Oliveira is the latest UFC fighter to question Herb Dean’s officiating: “He should have stepped in”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Oliveira has joined a growing list of fighters who have criticism for longtime referee Herb Dean.<\/p>\n

Dean has come under fire as of late following UFC Freedom 250 and UFC Baku. He officiated the interim heavyweight title fight between Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira. Gane won the fight via second-round TKO, but Pereira ripped Dean for not intervening when he took illegal shots to the back of the head.<\/p>\n

At UFC Baku, Dean was the referee for the co-headliner between Sharabutdin Magomedov and Michel Pereira. Dean didn\u2019t take a point<\/a> from Shara \u201cBullet\u201d despite the fact that he blatantly pulled Pereira\u2019s hair and then delivered an eye poke.<\/p>\n

Many have been critiquing Dean\u2019s work as of late, and Oliveira is the latest name to chime in. The BMF titleholder told MMAFighting<\/a> that Dean wasn\u2019t proactive enough during the Gane vs. Pereira fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow imagine Poatan\u2019s opponent, knowing all the pressure surrounding that fight. If Poatan had won, he would have become the guy with titles in three different weight classes. Poatan\u2019s name is huge. So imagine being his opponent, landing a big shot and thinking, \u2018Man, I\u2019m going to beat this guy, I\u2019m going to stop all this hype, and my name is going to skyrocket.\u2019 He\u2019s under pressure, in a moment where he wants to throw everything he has. That\u2019s why I think there\u2019s a referee there to understand what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong, whether it\u2019s time to stop the action or not. I put all the responsibility on the referee, just like I did with the referee in my fight. I think he should have stopped the fight and said, \u2018Man, you\u2019re doing something wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While \u201cdo Bronxs\u201d doesn\u2019t know if the illegal strikes directly led to the result, he still believes Dean should\u2019ve done something.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Herb Dean\u2019s case, I think he should have stepped in. As Poatan said, he took the jab, he took other shots, and there were punches to the back of the head. People asked me, \u2018Do you think a punch to the back of the head made a difference?\u2019 I don\u2019t know. I wasn\u2019t in there. What I do know is that several shots landed in a place where they shouldn\u2019t have. Whether that affected the outcome or not, I can\u2019t tell you. But there were definitely illegal strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time will tell if athletic commissions will begin to monitor Dean\u2019s performances more closely. Dean has defended himself numerous times from past criticism. He\u2019s also had the likes of \u201cBig\u201d John McCarthy vouch for him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Are you expecting Herb Dean to face scrutiny from the athletic commissions, or will it be business as usual? Chime in below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Oliveira has joined a growing list of fighters who have criticism for longtime referee Herb Dean. Dean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-782201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782201","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=782201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}