{"id":38869,"date":"2026-06-17T15:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Herb-Dean-defends-officiating-in-UFC-White-House-coheadliner-201553"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:12:23","slug":"herb-dean-defends-officiating-in-ufc-white-house-co-headliner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/herb-dean-defends-officiating-in-ufc-white-house-co-headliner\/","title":{"rendered":"Herb Dean defends officiating in UFC White House co-headliner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/herb-dean-defends-officiating-in-ufc-white-house-co-headliner.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p> \u201cThe back of the head\u201d is a tricky area in MMA, according to<br \/>\n<a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Herb-Dean-2648\">Herb<br \/>\nDean<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cyril Gane (14-2) and <a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/fighter\/Alex-Pereira-224511\">Alex<br \/>\nPereira<\/a> (13-4) clashed for the interim heavyweight title at<br \/>\n<a rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/events\/UFC-White-House-Freedom-250-Topuria-vs-Gaethje-111990\"><br \/>\nUFC White House<\/a>. Gane hurt Pereira with a jab early in the<br \/>\nsecond round and swarmed him with punches. As Pereira dropped to<br \/>\nthe canvas, Gane landed multiple blows to the back of the head<br \/>\nwithout any warning from Dean, who was the referee. While Pereira<br \/>\ngot back to his feet, Gane finished him soon after with a vicious<br \/>\nflurry.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"adViAi\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> Dean has faced severe backlash for allowing Gane\u2019s shots to the<br \/>\nback of Pereira\u2019s head, which have been widely deemed illegal.<br \/>\nPereira also holds Dean partly accountable for his loss, especially<br \/>\nafter emphasizing illegal blows to the back of the head during the<br \/>\nrules meeting before the fight.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dean has now defended his stance while elaborating on the rule.<br \/>\nAccording to Dean, the rule should actually be called illegal blows<br \/>\nto \u201cthe nape of the neck.\u201d Dean claims the \u201cback of the head\u201d<br \/>\ndiffers in MMA from boxing. Dean uploaded a video where he details<br \/>\nthe parts of the head where striking is off-limits. Dean says the<br \/>\nnape of the neck is completely illegal. Dean also marked a thin<br \/>\npatch on the center of the back of the head, which is illegal, with<br \/>\nan inch variable on each side. According to Dean, blows to the<br \/>\nsides of the back of the head are not illegal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Dean\u2019s Interpretation<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cI can tell by some of the comments online that I owe you guys an<br \/>\nexplanation about the rules and how I refereed the fight,\u201d Dean<br \/>\nsaid on social media. \u201cFirst of all, all respect to both fighters,<br \/>\nI\u2019m talking about Gane and Pereira. Amazing fight\u2026 The rule we\u2019re<br \/>\ntalking about is the back of the head. And that\u2019s confusing because<br \/>\nit\u2019s different than boxing. And the way we enforce this rule is, we<br \/>\nfocus on the nape of the neck, that\u2019s really what the rule should<br \/>\nbe called. The nape of the neck or a typical junction also covers<br \/>\nthe spine.\u201d<center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DZqgk8gvylk\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" readability=\"-0.29577464788732\"><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/center>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe back of the head\u201d is a tricky area in MMA, according to Herb Dean.&nbsp; Cyril Gane (14-2) and Alex Pereira (13-4) clashed for the interim heavyweight title at UFC White House. Gane hurt Pereira with a jab early in the second round and swarmed him with punches. As Pereira dropped to the canvas, Gane [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}