Herb Dean clarifies misconception of UFC pressuring referees to force action: "They're pretty hands off"
Herb Dean recently clarified the misconception regarding the UFC pressuring referees to force the action in fights and whether they impose strict measures to ensure they oblige. He noted that the promotion doesn't do that and disclosed how they communicate.
There has been plenty of discussion among the MMA community regarding the MMA leader possibly forcing referees to break up grappling exchanges earlier because of a negative crowd response. One of the more recent examples was at Noche UFC 306, when Dean was calling for Merab Dvalishvili to be more active during his main event title fight against Sean O'Malley.
During his latest appearance on Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson's JAXXON PODCAST, the longtime MMA referee dismissed the notion that the promotion influences the way fights are officiated. Dean mentioned that it has never been the case with the UFC and described how the referees perform their duties:
"The UFC doesn't put much pressure on me. Believe it or not, they're pretty hands off unless you do something horrible. Then they're like, okay, we don't need this guy around anymore. But, they pretty much leave it to the commissions to talk to us...I would appreciate more conversation."
Check out Herb Dean's comments below:
Herb Dean discloses whether referees have ever met with the UFC
In addition to clarifying the misconception regarding the UFC's influence on referees, Herb Dean disclosed that he met with the promotion only on one occasion.
During the aforementioned clip, Dean mentioned that the reason for the meeting wasn't to discuss ways to force action, but for the UFC to better understand their methods of officiating fights and the commission's scoring:
"We did have one time where we went and talked to the producers and analysts. I had a meeting that was like, a couple years ago, but that was the first time we had that ever...Just so [UFC] could understand some of the things we do, understand our scoring system, understand this or that."
Check out the full JAXXON PODCAST episode featuring Herb Dean below: