Woodley: Ladd was ‘saved’ by Herb Dean at UFC Sacramento

Tyron Woodley speaks about the controversial stoppage at UFC Sacramento’s headliner, once again involving referee Herb Dean.

Aspen Ladd had to go through a grueling weight cut just to make the 135-pound limit for her UFC Sacramento headliner against Germaine de Randamie. Fight night became a tad bit worse for her after what looked like a controversial stoppage by referee Herb Dean that led to her first-round TKO loss.

Ladd was hit by a right hand that instantly dropped her to the canvas, followed up by a few more punches from de Randamie. Dean immediately stepped into stop the fight, despite Ladd looking like she was not at all taken out by the shots.

There are mixed opinions about the stoppage. Tyron Woodley, for one, sided with the veteran referee.

“What I saw was two very sound, solid punches landed flush, hit on the chin,” Woodley said on the ESPN+ post-fight show. “So her ability to defend herself, whether she would’ve lasted four to five seconds longer – her ability to defend herself after being hit with that shot, probably for the first in her career that hard, would’ve been very, very limited to none.

“Blessing in disguise, I think she was saved by the referee, and I think it could’ve gotten worse.”

Dean has been involved in another controversial call a few months back, when he called the stoppage of the Robbie Lawler-Ben Askren fight at UFC 235 in March. In an appearance on the JRE MMA Show a little over a month later, he defended his decision stating Lawler should’ve shown more activity to defend the bulldog choke Askren had on him.