(Props: IronForgesIron via MMAMania)
If you missed the UFC 134 Spike TV Prelims broadcast on Saturday, then you missed Rousimar Palhares act as judge, jury, and (almost) executioner against Dan Miller. Near the end of the first round, Palhares landed a huge head kick that flattened Miller, and followed it up with some nasty punches from the top. And then he raised his arms in victory and strolled off to jump on the cage, as if the fight had been stopped, which it definitely hadn’t.
Herb Dean was forced to corral Palhares and tell him the fight was still going on. When the action was re-started, Miller immediately floored Palhares with a punch, but Palhares quickly recovered and did enough through the rest of the match to earn a comfortable unanimous decision win (29–27, 30–27, 30–25).
For ‘Toquinho’, it’s just the latest chapter in a controversial UFC career that has already included a 90-day suspension due to brutality, and an epically failed attempt to file a greasing complaint against Nate Marquardt while Marquardt was beating the crap out of him. But Palhares says the Miller non-stoppage was just a simple misunderstanding:
As he explained after the fight, “[Herb Dean] said, ‘Stop, stop, stop’ so I stopped. I thought the fight was over so I jumped onto the top of the cage…God is on my side. So I can win once, twice, three times.”
In reality, Herb Dean never said anything of the kind. It’s possible that Palhares’s head was simply tuned into the same radio frequency that only insane Brazilian fighters can hear.
Dana White wasn’t too impressed by the bizarre moment either: “I said, ‘This is fucking crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ I was tweeting about it while it happened. It’s the second time that he’s done… And then, could you imagine… First of all, he does that. In no way shape or form did Herb Dean stop that fight or even come close. He didn’t even make a move toward them to stop that fight. He runs over and jumps on top of the cage like he won, comes back, then almost gets knocked out. Just like he did against Nate Marquardt. It was crazy. I mean, Palhares, I went back and told him, ‘You don’t stop fights! The referees stop the fight.’”