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

[Orochimaru 大蛇丸]

Few complained about it because most people understand that your toes briefly slipping into one of the fence eyelets is something that is bound to happen when you push off. It is in no way comparable to hooking a glove or gripping the opponent’s shorts, which is why it is not illegal.

Actually, I have an issue with your entire take. Yes, various fouls fouls do occur when athletes are in the heat of competition, but a dozen+ of fouls, including short grabs and an illegal knee going ignored in a single fight is exceedingly rare. You are free to show me examples where this has happened before.

Yeah maybe that was a bad example

Yeah it is rare, I never said it wasn't, I just don't think it exposed Herb as a corrupt ref... is that what you're saying?

I think Conor is an exceptionally dirty fighter who got away with a lot because Herb didn't want to stop the action partially because Conor was getting dominated, and partially because it was the biggest fight in MMA history and Herb is already a shitty ref.

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

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:

Whenever Herb makes these videos, it makes him look worse.

 

[JonJonesNeedle]

Just makes Khabib's win look even better. Conor committed almost blatant every foul outside of a low blow/eyepoke, and Khabib still dominated him, dropping him standing, talking crap, beating on him, making him sub, then beating up Conor's team.

But Yes, Herb should have been fired for this fight.

 

[Mcnugget]

If its a fucking fight Khabib could have snapped his neck as well right ?

Then he would be the victor yes

 

[Mcnugget]

You don’t think those gifs look silly how khabib in the middle
Of a fight looks up to a referee to complain that someone kneed him when he wasn’t ready lol

One guy was clearly born in the streets and the other was pampered

 

[don't ask]

It is arbitrary. There's no reason for the rule except to make defense harder. It's giving wrestling an advantage not inherent in wrestling itself. If merely grabbing a fence can easily impede takedowns, then takedowns are overrated.

As far as legalizing fence grabs, they are already more or less legal. Fighters are almost never punished for blatant or repeated fence grabs.

It is not arbitrary. They want the sport to be mixed martial arts, but they also want to hold events in a proprietary cage which would let fighters eliminate the mixing of wrestling into the martial arts, so they made a rule about it.

"If merely grabbing a fence can easily impede takedowns"... come on, I know you've an old poster and you're probably not a troll, but just think about what you said for a minute. Let's not pretend that being surrounded by an easy-to-grasp environment is no little thing in disrupting takedowns. Instead of playing mental games and pretending that it means wrestling is overrated, maybe you should consider that when the best wrestlers in the world can have their takedowns disrupted by a fence grab then grabbing a fence is not a "mere" thing.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Khabib kicked Conor’s ass and in his desperation Conor committed some fouls. Who cares really.

Herb doesn’t help himself with his explanations but I get why he probably didn’t intervene — it was an epic fight and none of the fouls really affected the way it was going.

Personally I don’t care about fouls other than eye pokes and low blows. Not being able to retaliate with knees on the ground has always been dumb IMO. I also don’t care about fence grabs. The wrestler is using the fence to his advantage, why can’t the striker? Holding gloves and shorts I’m agnostic on

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

It is not arbitrary. They want the sport to be mixed martial arts, but they also want to hold events in a proprietary cage which would let fighters eliminate the mixing of wrestling into the martial arts, so they made a rule about it.

"If merely grabbing a fence can easily impede takedowns"... come on, I know you've posted here for a long time and you're probably not a troll, but just think about what you said for a minute. Let's not pretend that being surrounded by an easy-to-grasp environment is no little thing in disrupting takedowns. Instead of playing mental games and pretending that it means wrestling is overrated, maybe you should consider that when the best wrestlers in the world can have their takedowns disrupted by a fence grab then grabbing a fence is not a "mere" thing.

The best wrestlers in the world can also use the fence to get a takedown. They can use it to make getting up extremely difficult. They’re already protected from eating knees and 12:6 elbows while crotch sniffing with a knee or hand down, from eating knees in north-south or side control, etc.

Not saying fence-grabs are a no-brainer but it’s not like we otherwise have some perfectly clean combat experience.

 

[CPH]

Yeah maybe that was a bad example

Yeah it is rare, I never said it wasn't, I just don't think it exposed Herb as a corrupt ref... is that what you're saying?

I think Conor is an exceptionally dirty fighter who got away with a lot because Herb didn't want to stop the action partially because Conor was getting dominated, and partially because it was the biggest fight in MMA history and Herb is already a shitty ref.

I agree/don’t buy the corruption angle either. As you say: shitty ref and therefore maybe hesitant to intervene in the biggest fight ever - much easier to turn a blind eye than to put yourself in the crosshairs by making an actual call.

 

[Mage]

You don’t think those gifs look silly how khabib in the middle
Of a fight looks up to a referee to complain that someone kneed him when he wasn’t ready lol

One guy was clearly born in the streets and the other was pampered

 

[don't ask]

The best wrestlers in the world can also use the fence to get a takedown. They can use it to make getting up extremely difficult. They’re already protected from eating knees and 12:6 elbows while crotch sniffing with a knee or hand down, from eating knees in north-south or side control, etc.

Not saying fence-grabs are a no-brainer but it’s not like we otherwise have some perfectly clean combat experience.

None of that has any relevance as to whether or not it's true that grabbing the fence is a mere thing or that wrestling must be massively overrated if it can be disrupted by grabbing the fence.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

None of that has any relevance as to whether or not it's true that grabbing the fence is a mere thing or that wrestling must be massively overrated if it can be disrupted by grabbing the fence.

That’s fine, I wasn’t the one who made that claim. I agree that it would be a big help for TDD.

 

[Poirierfan]

The best wrestlers in the world can also use the fence to get a takedown. They can use it to make getting up extremely difficult. They’re already protected from eating knees and 12:6 elbows while crotch sniffing with a knee or hand down, from eating knees in north-south or side control, etc.

Not saying fence-grabs are a no-brainer but it’s not like we otherwise have some perfectly clean combat experience.

 

[acannxr]

Why so emotional? It's 2022. He retired. Didn't want that smoke in the rematch.

Criticizing Herb Dean makes me "emotional"? And did you even bother checking the date of the OP?

 

[wwkirk]

Criticizing Herb Dean makes me "emotional"? And did you even bother checking the date of the OP?

lol He fell into the bumped thread trap.