{"id":134899,"date":"2025-09-10T23:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/134899\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:51:09","slug":"dominick-cruz-goes-on-x-rated-rant-against-referee-keith-peterson-five-years-after-controversial-stoppage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/134899\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominick Cruz goes on X-rated rant against referee Keith Peterson five years after controversial stoppage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz still holds a major grudge against referee Keith Peterson.<\/p>\n<p>Dominick Cruz announced his retirement from MMA earlier this year after his planned final fight at UFC Seattle was scratched due to an injury suffered in camp. Despite the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-opens-up-on-excruciating-career-ending-injury-this-was-enough-pain-to-teach-me-something\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">abrupt end to his fighting career<\/a>, Cruz is a likely future UFC Hall of Famer and arguably the greatest bantamweight in the promotion\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz\u2019s attempt to become a three-time UFC bantamweight champion fell short of the mark when he lost by TKO to Henry Cejudo at UFC 249. The fight was the co-main event of the UFC\u2019s return to action after a brief hiatus due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>In the years since UFC 249, Cruz has remained extremely critical of referee Keith Peterson\u2019s abrupt stoppage to the fight.<\/p>\n<p>Dominick Cruz goes off on referee Keith Peterson more than five years since Henry Cejudo loss<\/p>\n<p>During a recent appearance on the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/KiRxAw2J2nY?si=-_LtjKMeZ6mYMeDM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MightyCast<\/a> podcast, Cruz took things a step further in reflecting on Peterson\u2019s controversial stoppage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way that the fight went, I\u2019m on my feet, I\u2019m up. No nonsense Keith Peterson is a complete f\u2014 up for that,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnly sporting event in the world going on, one second on the clock. I did my job as a fighter, and he completedly failed as a referee. A complete failure, and on multiple occasions he\u2019s kept doing it. So yes, that fight got away from me, and it taught me that yes, I got hit and I shouldn\u2019t\u2019ve got clipped. I take responsibility for that, and I told Keith Peterson that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI get dropped almost every fight, I get up and whoop your a\u2013 right after that\u2026there\u2019s a game we\u2019re playing, took half of my check from me, because he wanted to look at Henry and listen to him,\u201d Cruz continued. \u201cDude, you are a weakling. Weak human for that. So get your life together and come back and get in and ref.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As of this writing, Peterson hasn\u2019t responded to Cruz\u2019s remarks. Cruz\u2019s final UFC fight came against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/nobody-has-been-able-to-do-that-to-dominick-cruz-brendan-schaub-calls-for-marlon-vera-to-receive-a-title-shot\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marlon \u2018Chito\u2019 Vera in the UFC San Diego main event<\/a> in 2022, losing by head-kick knockout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz still holds a major grudge against referee Keith Peterson. Dominick Cruz announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,30470,641,35892,73382,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-134899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dominick-cruz","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-henry-cejudo","13":"tag-keith-peterson","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}