McGregor cheated at least 19 times against Khabib; Herb Dean should be fired.

[Reffson]

Round 1

(1) Grabbing shorts with his left hand.

(2) Strikes to the back of the head, (3) 12-6 elbows, and (4) grabbing shorts with his left hand.

(5) Grabbing shorts with his left hand.

(6) Strikes to the back of the head and (7) 12-6 elbow.

(8) Grabbing shorts with his left hand.

Round 2

(9) Kneeing a downed opponent.

This couldn't have been anymore flagrant; it's not like they were in a position in which it was difficult for McGregor to assess whether or not Nurmagomedov was a downed opponent.

(10) Grabbing the cage with his toes.

(11) Grabbing the cage with his toes.

And this foul was done right after Dean had already removed McGregor's toes from the cage.

Round 3

(12) Groin strike.

(13) Grabbing shorts with his left hand.

(14) Hooking fingers into opponent's glove.

(15) Hooking fingers into opponent's glove and (16) strike to the back of the head.

This might be one the most obvious signs of Herb Dean's incompetence/corruption: McGregor had hooked his fingers into Nurmagomedov's glove for 24 seconds in plain view of Dean, and not only was a warning not given nor a point deducted from McGregor, Dean actually gave Nurmagomedov a warning for inactivity.

Round 4

(17) Grabbing the cage with his right hand.

(18) Grabbing the cage with his toes.

(19) Grabbing the cage with his toes.

Herb Dean recently explained his rationale for not deducting a single point for any of these fouls, but all he's achieved is make himself look worse:



What exactly does excitement have to do with a referees job? His job is to protect the fighters and ensure that the rules are being followed. Nurmagomedov wasn't protected from McGregor's fouls nor were the rules being enforced.


And yet how much did the above 19 fouls affect the outcome?

One of Dean's many flawed explanations for why he didn't take a point was because he didn't want to reward McGregor with a stand up by calling a pause in the action to deduct a point.

However, I copied this directly from the Unified Rules of MMA:

What's hilarious is that Dean has deducted points, without pausing the action, in past fights: he deducted a point from Gabriel Gonzaga in the Randy Couture fight for grabbing the fence in the second round, and did not pause the action (because Couture was in an advantageous position).

Another example was when John McCarthy deducted a point from Tito Ortiz for grabbing the fence against Rashad Evans at UFC 73; McCarthy didn't pause the action at all and Evans maintained top position.

Oh and McGregor has already admitted to cheating on Twitter:

Don't forget, Conor also kicked Khabib's nuts when your mouth was attached to them.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Yeah, like I said, other than the illegal knee Conor threw, which was blatant and should have resulted in a point deduction, the rest is pretty much par for the course in MMA, and nothing to be bothered by. It's the kind of stuff that ewe usually let slide, except McGregor and O'Malley are polarizing fighters, and so people are looking for a reason to be upset.

The UFC should tighten up policy about "unintentional" groin strikes and eyepokes. They should be penalized more rapidly imo. But fence grabs should be legal (they already more or less are) and fans should stop complaining about them. And grabbing the fence is what the majority of the complaint against McGregor and O'Malley consist of. It's small beer.

Yeah it’s weird how nobody brings up the shorts grab that led to Anderson finishing Chael the second time

Or in the third Conor Dustin fight, Dustin put his toes in the cage to get out of a guillotine, nobody points that out, yet they will obsess about Conor grabbing the glove… if Conor did the same thing to get out of a guillotine they would be convinced he only got away with it because he’s Conor

Cheating is apart of sports, I understand pointing it out, complaining about reffing, complaining about certain fighters being dirty, etc. but claiming it’s all corrupt and Conor or O’Malley or whoever just gets away with it because they move the needle is bullshit IMO

I disagree that they should make fence grabbing legal though, it would be fucking impossible to take anyone down lol

 

[maximus__]

Yeah, like I said, other than the illegal knee Conor threw, which was blatant and should have resulted in a point deduction, the rest is pretty much par for the course in MMA, and nothing to be bothered by. It's the kind of stuff that ewe usually let slide, except McGregor and O'Malley are polarizing fighters, and so people are looking for a reason to be upset.

The UFC should tighten up policy about "unintentional" groin strikes and eyepokes. They should be penalized more rapidly imo. But fence grabs should be legal (they already more or less are) and fans should stop complaining about them. And grabbing the fence is what the majority of the complaint against McGregor and O'Malley consist of. It's small beer.

I lean to the other camp. Take a point on the first fence grab. You start taking points hard for 6 months and fence grabs will leave the sport because people will train to avoid losing that point.

You could make it a non issue in the sport in under 12 months by enforcing it hard.

 

[Jackonfire]

Yeah it’s weird how nobody brings up the shorts grab that led to Anderson finishing Chael the second time

Oh, people used to bring it up all the time until I posted a clip of Sonnen being asked about it. He said he didn't notice it, most likely because he was too busy also grabbing Anderson's shorts. There was mutual grabbage going on. But of course people only complained about Anderson doing it.

 

[maximus__]

Yeah it’s weird how nobody brings up the shorts grab that led to Anderson finishing Chael the second time

Or in the third Conor Dustin fight, Dustin put his toes in the cage to get out of a guillotine, nobody points that out, yet they will obsess about Conor grabbing the glove… if Conor did the same thing to get out of a guillotine they would be convinced he only got away with it because he’s Conor

Cheating is apart of sports, I understand pointing it out, complaining about reffing, complaining about certain fighters being dirty, etc. but claiming it’s all corrupt and Conor or O’Malley or whoever just gets away with it because they move the needle is bullshit IMO

I disagree that they should make fence grabbing legal though, it would be fucking impossible to take anyone down lol

Take a point for the Anderson shorts grab. That was pretty bad.

Poirer is ok though. You could argue he changed position due to his toes in the cage I guess.

Same round from Conor and it wasn't the first time.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Oh, people used to bring it up all the time until I posted a clip of Sonnen being asked about it. He said he didn't notice it, most likely because he was too busy also grabbing Anderson's shorts. There was mutual grabbage going on. But of course people only complained about Anderson doing it.

Oh really? I stand corrected lol.

For the record I don’t think it matters, I just think a lot of people only care about stuff like that when a fighter they don’t like does it.

 

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Take a point for the Anderson shorts grab. That was pretty bad.

Poirer is ok though. You could argue he changed position due to his toes in the cage I guess.

Same round from Conor and it wasn't the first time.

Yeah I think his toes in the cage helped him change position, but maybe I’m wrong, I’d have to rewatch it.

 

[Tapatio]

 

[JoeyJoeJoeJr]

im actually surprised he didnt try to bite him

 

[fedorthegoat777]

He needed those to have a chance and make it a fair fight.

Should have tried for 30.

 

[maximus__]

Yeah I think his toes in the cage helped him change position, but maybe I’m wrong, I’d have to rewatch it.

Imissedd it live. The guillotine was pretty average so I never gave it any credit live.

 

[Phisher]

Herb is a pos corrupt ref, ive hated him since the fedor early stoppage vs hendo...no wonder the ufc call him the best...yup the best at following bribe orders from above lol

Can't tell if trolling or not.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I lean to the other camp. Take a point on the first fence grab. You start taking points hard for 6 months and fence grabs will leave the sport because people will train to avoid losing that point.

You could make it a non issue in the sport in under 12 months by enforcing it hard.

Fence grabs should be made legal. That would make it a non-issue immediately and would do so without over-interference by the referees.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

View attachment 950531

I'm not a McGregor fanaitc, but I'd tend to agree that McGregor's chances to win were undercut by
too much cocaine
too much whisky
Irish Edmond
and, was tired (aka bad cardio)

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I disagree that they should make fence grabbing legal though, it would be fucking impossible to take anyone down lol

My problem with that reasoning is that to me it cuts against the essence of MMA. Essentially you're saying that an unskilled defense, grabbing on to a fence, renders years of training useless.

If that is true, then takedowns are far less effective than we've been led to believe, and if that is true then wrestling is massively overrated and largely exists as a result of a ruleset that forbids easy and effective defense against it.

 

[maximus__]

Fence grabs should be made legal. That would make it a non-issue immediately and would do so without over-interference by the referees.

I disagree. Cage work is hard enough as it is without your opponent being able to hook their fingers into the cage. If you made it legal it would be impossible to get off the wall if your opponent wants to wall and stall. Every single round would look like Usman vs Masvidal 1.

 

[acannxr]

What a crybaby thread this is.

The knee to the head should have cost McGregor an immediate point deduction. That was a dirty and obviously intentional shot. The rest happens on pretty much every card. I saw a video complaining that O'Malley grabbed the fence however many times against Yan too. It has always been quasi-legal.

Great analogy.

It's a crybaby thread to point out blatant cheating and an incompetent (at best) ref? I've never seen another fight with this many fouls, let alone occurring on "pretty much every card". You're simply trying to downplay it because you incorrectly believe that some kind of bias is at play here.

Yeah, like I said, other than the illegal knee Conor threw, which was blatant and should have resulted in a point deduction, the rest is pretty much par for the course in MMA, and nothing to be bothered by. It's the kind of stuff that ewe usually let slide, except McGregor and O'Malley are polarizing fighters, and so people are looking for a reason to be upset.

The UFC should tighten up policy about "unintentional" groin strikes and eyepokes. They should be penalized more rapidly imo. But fence grabs should be legal (they already more or less are) and fans should stop complaining about them. And grabbing the fence is what the majority of the complaint against McGregor and O'Malley consist of. It's small beer.

My complaint has more to do with Herb Dean, who refs most of the big fights, not doing his job properly. I don't care which fighters were involved, anyone committing 19 fouls in a single fight is a cheater, and any ref who deducts zero points from that fighter shouldn't be a ref, and that's the extent of why I created this thread.

And make fence grabs legal? What a joke. Perhaps if refs took an automatic point for any and all fence grabs, fighters would immediately stop doing it. In fact, if refs took an automatic point for fouls worthy of point deductions, fighters wouldn't try to get freebie fouls.

Don't forget, Conor also kicked Khabib's nuts when your mouth was attached to them.

I'm not a fan of Nurmagomedov, try again.

Yeah it’s weird how nobody brings up the shorts grab that led to Anderson finishing Chael the second time

Sherdoggers brought it up back then and years after...

I found these posts/threads in less than a minute:
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...-anderson-silva.3620385/page-2#post-133905591
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/chael-sonnen-vs-anderson-silva-2-free-fight-ufc.3466183/
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/81475213/
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/fighters-letting-their-opponent-off-the-hook.4225781/page-2
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/145788973/

Or in the third Conor Dustin fight, Dustin put his toes in the cage to get out of a guillotine, nobody points that out, yet they will obsess about Conor grabbing the glove… if Conor did the same thing to get out of a guillotine they would be convinced he only got away with it because he’s Conor

Poirier walked his feet up the cage to relieve the pressure of the guillotine attempt, he didn't need his toes in the cage to do that, and he actually escaped the submission by popping his head out (after his back was already faced away from the cage).

McGregor hooked his fingers into Poirier's glove while trying to upkick-ko him, which is more than just "grabbing the glove"; McGregor also has a history across multiple fights of cheating.

Cheating is apart of sports, I understand pointing it out, complaining about reffing, complaining about certain fighters being dirty, etc. but claiming it’s all corrupt and Conor or O’Malley or whoever just gets away with it because they move the needle is bullshit IMO

I could see Herb Dean as being corrupt (his wife works for the UFC), but he's definitively incompetent, and there's no disputing that.

Oh really? I stand corrected lol.

For the record I don’t think it matters, I just think a lot of people only care about stuff like that when a fighter they don’t like does it.

I don't care who the fighters are, I just want fighters to win and lose with no cheating involved, or at the very least for refs to deduct points when it's as blatant and numerous as McGregor was against Nurmagomedov.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I disagree. Cage work is hard enough as it is without your opponent being able to hook their fingers into the cage. If you made it legal it would be impossible to get off the wall if your opponent wants to wall and stall. Every single round would look like Usman vs Masvidal 1.

Fair point. Because grabbing the cage in that way stalemates the fight. But that's not the type of cage grab being complained about here.

How about no cage grabs in the clinch? But cage grabs while being clinched or shot on are fine?

 

[kalabula]

Conor is both the best and worst thing to happen to MMA. He’s driven the interest in this sort through the roof. But he’s also, made 90% of the posts in every mma sun about him.

 

[maximus__]

Fair point. Because grabbing the cage in that way stalemates the fight. But that's not the type of cage grab being complained about here.

How about no cage grabs in the clinch? But cage grabs while being clinched or shot on are fine?

Nah. Then you are giving advantages for defence in a sport that only scores offence. It goes against how MMA is scored.

It's possible to use the cage without grabbing it to defend and get up anyway. I lean on the side of auto point deductions following a review by a cage side ref on video.