Alex Pereira blasts referee Herb Dean after UFC White House loss

Alex Pereira has broken his silence on his UFC White House loss with a scathing attack on referee Herb Dean.

The former two-division champion's bid to become the first three-division UFC titleholder ended when Ciryl Gane stopped him in the second round of their interim heavyweight title fight at UFC Freedom 250 on Sunday. Pereira told his podcast that Dean missed multiple illegal strikes to the back of his head during the finishing sequence, according to MMA Fighting.

"The ref is watching that they are illegal shots, but he thinks like this, 'How am I going to stop this fight?'" Pereira said. "It's illegal, it's in the rules. You're not going to be wrong if you stop it. In that scenario, people give him credit as a man. But now he is not a man. He shouldn't have been refereeing that fight."

Pereira raised concerns before the fight

Pereira said he warned Dean during the pre-fight rules meeting about Gane's history of fouls. Gane's previous bout against Tom Aspinall at UFC 321 ended in a no-contest after an eye poke, and former champion Junior dos Santos once accused the Frenchman of landing back-of-the-head elbows in their 2020 meeting. Pereira had his coach translate a specific request that Dean watch for those tactics.

"I told him, 'Look, man, eye poke, groin strikes, those things can happen. It's not supposed to, but it can happen. But this guy has a long history of it,'" Pereira said. He acknowledged that Gane landed a clean jab that dropped him but claimed illegal follow-up shots prevented his recovery.

Pereira told his management team he wants an immediate rematch rather than see Gane advance to unify the title with Aspinall. The UFC reportedly asked for time to review the situation. Pereira's next move remains undecided.

Reported via:

• MMA Fighting — Alex Pereira releases first statement since UFC White House loss, blasts referee for missing illegal strikes: ‘He is not a man’