Dana White won’t intervene in the recent criticism toward referee Herb Dean.
Dean was under fire again for how he officiated Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 280 co-main event in Baku, Azerbaijan between Shara Magomedov (17-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) and Michel Pereira (32-15 MMA, 10-6 UFC), which prompted former UFC champion Alex Pereira to chime in again.
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Pereira (13-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) planned on filing an appeal against Dean for mishandling the fight-ending sequence in his TKO loss to Ciryl Gane at UFC Freedom 250, where he maintains he was illegally struck to the back of the head numerous times.
Now, Pereira called out Dean again for refusing to take a point off Magomedov, who repeatedly pulled Pereira’s ponytail when he was dropped, and later accidentally poked him in the eye. Magomedov rallied to win the fight by unanimous decision.
UFC CEO White was asked if he thinks Dean has a lost a step.
“I don’t know,” White said during the Zuffa Boxing 08 post-fight news conference (h/t The MacLife). “I don’t know the answer to that question, but that’s not up to me. That’s up to the commission.”
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White was then asked about Pereira’s plans to file an appeal.
“I heard about it,” White said. “There is no MMA in my algorithm. Unless (the UFC PR director) tells me, I don’t know.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dana White: Referee Herb Dean controversy ‘up to the commission’ to handle
