Is herb dean the worst ref lately?

[Portland8242]

Wrong. He didn't let McGregor cheat, he just made a judgement call that the degree he cheated wasn't stopping Khabib from imposing his will so it was better not to stop the action. I think after the second fence grab he should have taken a point but I see the argument against that. Perhaps to really punish the fighters he should just call out "1 point McGregor, fence grab" without stopping the action to really mindfuck the cheater. I'd be all about that. He doesn't deserve a break for cheating. Or call our 1 point and also give credit for a takedown and reposition them on the mat. Either way I'm cool with it. But I've only ever seen a ref do that once or twice in the most egregious of cases and I don't recall ever seeing it in a championship fight. Can't put that on herb.
Wrong. Lawler vs Askren was handled correctly. Robbie's arm dropped like it went limp. You can't fault anyone for that stoppage regardless if we can't definitively say he did or did not go out. I disagree with the stoppage but in the moment I probably would have done the same thing as herb, as would any competent ref.

Truth, heart hands has never fucked up a fight.

Are you blind or something? Did you just happen to miss the blatantly illegal knee to Khabib's head when he had a kimura locked in that essentially saved Conor from getting finished???? "DIdn't stop Khabib from imposing his will" good fucking grief, I think we found Herb Dean's Sherdog account folks.

 

[Oooxente]

The worst?
IDK .
I highly suspect he is the most “well paid”depending on the fight he is judging.

 

[Arrrrgh]

Are you blind or something? Did you just happen to miss the blatantly illegal knee to Khabib's head when he had a kimura locked in that essentially saved Conor from getting finished???? "DIdn't stop Khabib from imposing his will" good fucking grief, I think we found Herb Dean's Sherdog account folks.

I only watched that fight once.
I don't remember the knee you are talking about. So I'll go review it now.

The kimura wasn't locked in yet. Khabib had control of one hand. Herb warning Conor about the knee arguably distracted conor and allowed Khabib to pull the arm to the side of his body.

It was an illegal knee. It arguably could have been a point. But handling it the way Herb did allowed Khabib to improve his position.

That's a weird foul to focus on. Conor's toes in the cage were way worse imo. Don't get me wrong. It definitely landed to the head and landed fairly hard. But it was a knee off his back on the bottom. You don't generate much force with your knee unless you can push off or plant with your other leg. Still, it was illegal and did impact the fight. It just wasn't what you built it up to be.

EDIT***
Actually Herb did fuck up pretty bad there but it wasn't the knee. Right after the illegal knee Conor stuck his toes in the cage, Herb pulled his foot out and warned him and Conor stuck his toes right back in the cage. Herb let him keep his toes in the cage for like 15-20 seconds while khabib was working on the sub. I get it, he didn't want to interfere with the submission attempt but Khabib arguably finishes it there if Conor doesn't get leverage to keep his leg up from toes in the cage.

Still, you can see why he didn't stop it. Khabib was attempting a sub. Interfering could have messed it up. Judgement call. I'm not mad.

 

[ianferguson]

Holy fuck, are shertards being retarded now?

Yes.

And we prefer the term shermentally challenged if you dont mind

 

[OG Thanos]

white-knighting

A better way to put it.

 

[91 seconds]

Yes

 

[Poirierfan]

I don’t understand how he can do the job as long as he has, yet somehow get continually worse. His concept of a stoppage seems to change from fight to fight.

This indicates one of two things - either he’s incompetent or corrupt.

Amen, well said. I'm leaning towards Corrupt in the big fights, but just incompetent in the rest. There's just way too much evidence at this point to think otherwise.

 

[vgff]

He let mcgregor cheated
He screwed up lawler vs askren

Mario Yamasaki is the real mvp

do you think any ref is gonna retire without having some mistakes?
of all the hundreds of fights Herb has reffed, there's maybe a handful of fights where he made some questionable decision

 

[Tex24]

Herbs out of his prime

 

[acannxr]

I only watched that fight once.
I don't remember the knee you are talking about. So I'll go review it now.

The kimura wasn't locked in yet. Khabib had control of one hand. Herb warning Conor about the knee arguably distracted conor and allowed Khabib to pull the arm to the side of his body.

It was an illegal knee. It arguably could have been a point. But handling it the way Herb did allowed Khabib to improve his position.

That's a weird foul to focus on. Conor's toes in the cage were way worse imo. Don't get me wrong. It definitely landed to the head and landed fairly hard. But it was a knee off his back on the bottom. You don't generate much force with your knee unless you can push off or plant with your other leg. Still, it was illegal and did impact the fight. It just wasn't what you built it up to be.

EDIT***
Actually Herb did fuck up pretty bad there but it wasn't the knee. Right after the illegal knee Conor stuck his toes in the cage, Herb pulled his foot out and warned him and Conor stuck his toes right back in the cage. Herb let him keep his toes in the cage for like 15-20 seconds while khabib was working on the sub. I get it, he didn't want to interfere with the submission attempt but Khabib arguably finishes it there if Conor doesn't get leverage to keep his leg up from toes in the cage.

Still, you can see why he didn't stop it. Khabib was attempting a sub. Interfering could have messed it up. Judgement call. I'm not mad.

See:

(I made the below gifs, but the captions were in the video already).

Dean didn't take a single point, in spite of the fact that a stand-up is not required to do so.

12-6 elbows and strikes on the back of Khabib's head with right elbow, and grabbing shorts with left hand:

Grabbing shorts with left hand:

Grabbing shorts with left hand:

Grabbing Khabib's glove with right hand:

Grabbing shorts with left hand:

Grabbing shorts with left hand:

Grabbing shorts with left hand:

Illegal knee:

Grabbing fence with foot:

Grabbing fence again with foot (right after the above gif):

Illegal pointing fingers forward with outstretched hand:

Groin kick:

Nurmagomedov attempted to gain better positioning multiple times in the first round, but McGregor's cheating prevented it.
Nurmagomedov had a Kimura locked in and McGregor threw an illegal knee, then put his toes in the cage twice to counteract Nurmagomedov's leverage.

Those are just two examples of how McGregor's fouls impeded Nurmagomedov. The action doesn't need to be stopped, nor is a standup required for refs to take points, and despite over 20 fouls from McGregor there were no points taken. The fact that no points were taken probably made Nurmagomedov more frustrated/angry, and we all know what happened in the post fight.

Dean is a terrible and overrated ref.

 

[Rampage_Jackson]

Reffing is hard and he's a lot better than any of his bitch ass critics would be.

 

[Flex Plexico]

he was never the "gold standard"

he is okay.. i used to say he was very bad, but he has upgraded to just not so good. hes super inconsistent, thats for sure.

herzog might be the best. i know yves gets a lot of crap sometimes, but he is very good too. ppl dont like that he steps in really close sometimes, but id rather that than a fight get called early. if he realizes he messed up, hes not afraid to change what he messed up.

Jason’s front headlock game is strong af

 

[MRT]

That Khabib Conor fight will go down as the worst reffed fight I have ever watched.

really??

give Pat Curran vs. Joe Warren a watch (watch the whole last round, not just the fight-ending sequence)...that ref should be in jail lol

 

[Raknesh]

Dean is a solid ref.

No one is perfect.

John Mccarthy set the bar fucking high as the all-time GOAT ref.

 

[wartor]

Big Jon left some might big shoes to fill. I think Herb actually started to go downhill after he went to a BBQ with Cain Valesquez. You eat some of this stuff and it's no wonder he can't concentrate in the cage anymore. He is either thinking about eating, getting some water, or not shitting his pants at all times now.

 

[chinarice]

Herb has sucked for a long time and I have been saying this on here for years. He's not that good of a ref.