Why Herb Dean Did the Right Thing

Dean is one of the better refs in MMA and a pretty nice guy.

Herb Dean was in one of the toughest positions a referee can possibly be in during MMA competition. During the WEC 45 main event fight between Donald Cerrone (11-2-0-1 MMA) and Ed Ratcliff (7-2 MMA), Dean had to stop the fight multiple times and deal with a handful of serious fouls on committed by Cerrone.

While Cerrone’s actions clearly changed the course of the fight, and while the three knees he landed on the groin of Ratcliff clearly paid a roll in Cerrone eventually winning the fight by submission, Dean properly handled the calls, which was to issue a warning on the first foul and then give point deductions for additional fouls (which cost Cerrone two points; one in the first round and one in the second). This is a study in exactly how a referee in should handle the fouls.

As Frank Mir, commentating, pointed out during the event, the fouls do not need to be intentional to end in a disqualification, and if the third knee to the groin delivered by Cerrone had rendered Ratcliff unable to continue, Dean would have been perfectly within his bounds to either disqualify Cerrone or call the fight a No Contest (the latter being the preferable option in my opinion). Still, Dean pushed Ratcliff to continue and Ratcliff did, which allowed the fight to come to a semi-satisfying conclusion for fans, or at least for Cerrone to attempt to end the fight with a legitimate move.

The fight will (and should be) controversial, because an illegal strike forced Ratcliff to fight slower and caused him a lot of pain, to lose his rhythm and, clearly, to adjust his game to deal with something he shouldn’t have had to think about, in terms of the illegal strike.

Perhaps the best call by Dean, though, was the decision to stand Cerrone back up after grabbing the fence turned into gaining the mount position. This is not a call that I’ve seen very often. Generally, the referee will issue a warning and then let the fight continue regardless of what happened (see Lindland vs. Emelianenko or Pe De Pano vs. Arlovski). Dean’s decision, though, was a perfectly valid one and, given that Cerrone had already committed three fouls previously, it was a smart move on Dean’s part to stand the two fighters up.

Normally, being a ref is a tough job and there are guys who catch flack when they make terrible calls but never get credit for making good stoppages or good standups (a term which, for the most part, seems like an oxymoron to me). However, Dean did a great job in what was a very tough fight last night and he allowed the fans to see what was crowned “Fight of the Night” by the WEC.

Dean’s made some suspect calls in events I’ve been at (Aina vs. Evangelista was an incredibly tough call that he came out on the wrong side of), but it’s clear that Dean is one of the guys that tries hard to make the right call and, as someone who’s competed as a professional fighter, he understands the importance of letting the fighters be responsible for the end of the bout, instead of the referee, which is what MMA is all about.