Alex Pereira released a video statement Tuesday accusing his UFC Freedom 250 opponent Ciryl Gane of landing illegal blows to the back of his head while also criticizing how the fight was officiated.<\/p>\n
Pereira suffered a TKO loss in the second round of his interim heavyweight title bout against Gane at the White House. The 38-year-old was attempting to become the first fighter in the promotion’s history to win titles in three different weight classes. <\/p>\n
During the closing moments of the match, Pereira sustained significant damage in the form of repeated strikes, with some punches and elbows connecting with the back of the Brazilian’s head.<\/p>\n
Pereira called those strikes illegal and questioned why referee Herb Dean didn’t intervene or stop the match.<\/p>\n
“I think if it weren’t for those punches, I wouldn’t be in that situation,” Pereira said in Portuguese. “When the jab landed, I fell and grabbed his legs. Throwing elbows and punches, the guy was desperate. He landed a punch that he couldn’t even believe and then he wanted to end the fight no matter what. The ref was there watching. … The guy sees it’s an illegal hit, but I think he’s thinking, ‘Bro, how am I gonna stop this fight?'”<\/p>\n
Pereira continued to direct his frustration at Dean, challenging the veteran referee’s integrity.<\/p>\n
“He shouldn’t have been refereeing that fight. To be honest, a guy like that should be punished,” Pereira said.<\/p>\n
Later Tuesday, Dean posted a video on Instagram explaining why Gane’s punches in the closing sequence weren’t considered fouls.<\/p>\n
“The rule we’re talking about is the back of the head, and that’s confusing because it’s different than boxing,” Dean said.<\/p>\n
He went on to explain that making contact with the nape of the neck is illegal, while blows to the side of the head are fair.<\/p>\n
Gane has developed a reputation for committing fouls during fights. In October 2025, his UFC 321 match against heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall ended in a no-contest after the Frenchman delivered a double eye poke. He also received criticism for landing illegal elbows to the back of Junior Dos Santos’ head during their 2020 fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira released a video statement Tuesday accusing his UFC Freedom 250 opponent Ciryl Gane of landing illegal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-743136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743136","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=743136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}