Tenured UFC referee Herb Dean called out Joe Rogan for spreading misinformation.
Looking back on the UFC 300 headliner between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill during an episode of his JRE podcast, Rogan suggested that ‘Poatan’ gained an unfair advantage in the early going when he waved off Dean following an accidental low blow from Hill.
Dean, who was refereeing the main event clash, looked to bring a pause to the action after Hill inadvertently hit Pereira low. As Dean approached, Hill noticeably relaxed himself, but Pereira promptly waved off Dean, indicating that he was okay and did not need any time to recover. Dean allowed the fight to continue uninterrupted and seconds later, Pereira blasted the ex-champ with a big left hand followed by some ground-and-pound that brought an end to Hill’s night.
Rogan later claimed that the brief moment allowed Pereira to move in on Hill while ‘Sweet Dreams’ was expecting a break in the action.
Reviewing the video footage, Dean, accused Rogan of bending the truth to get clicks when it was very apparent that Pereira never once took a step toward Hill until it was clear that the fight would continue.
“There’s a couple of analysts in our sport who are really good at picking out sensational things, and they’re so sincere when they talk that talk,” Dean said via Lifecheck MMA. “I mean, I think they can talk you into believing their words over your lying eyes.
“I know that my job and my focus is to try and referee clean matches as much as I can. Some of these people have jobs in the sport. Maybe they know their job is to get clicks. The truth doesn’t matter.”
Herb Dean defends his actions against Jamahal Hill
It’s certainly not the first time Dean has had to defend his actions at the landmark event. Not long after his knockout loss, Jamahal Hill expressed some frustration and suggested that a “more clean and better reset” could have been the difference-maker.
Looking back, Dean is uncertain what more he could have done as neither fighter advanced on the other or appeared to gain any type of advantage during the split-second standstill.
“What’s the funniest part about this? After I call time out, no one moves,” Dean said on The Casuals MMA Podcast.
“I went back and looked at that, that was one of the ones, right away, I was like, ‘Huh? How was that? Was that mechanically correct? Was it clean?’ I watched it. I was like, ‘Yeah, that looked clean’. And then I’ve heard that some analysts were, like talking about it and talking about something that actually you don’t see. They’re like, ‘What if after he called timeout, he was able to get a position and you don’t see it happen?’ But he’s like, ‘Well, I just have to say they did to get clicks.’”
