Oliveira says Herb Dean's failure to act on illegal strikes should 'serve as a lesson'

Charles Oliveira has called on referees to learn from Herb Dean’s handling of Ciryl Gane’s illegal strikes during Alex Pereira’s UFC White House light heavyweight title defence, arguing that Dean should have intervened when punches landed to the back of Pereira’s head.

Gane stopped Pereira with a flurry of punches and elbows after dropping him with a jab, but several of those blows appeared to land to the back of the head — a point Pereira raised loudly in the aftermath. Oliveira, who holds the BMF title, said he had expected Gane to be a stern test for “Poatan” at heavyweight, but believed a path to victory existed before the finish arrived in controversial circumstances.

“Poatan reacted the right way after the knockdown, going for the legs to defend,” Oliveira said. “Then, in the middle of that chaos — not because he’s Brazilian, but the whole world saw it and it was obvious — some shots landed to the back of the head when they shouldn’t have.”

Oliveira drew a direct comparison to his own five-round rematch with Michael Chandler in 2024, in which referee Keith Peterson failed to act on illegal strikes to the back of his head during the final round. Oliveira won that fight on the judges’ scorecards, but said the situation could easily have ended his momentum.

“I was having a great fight against Michael Chandler, making it look easy against him, and then in the final round he hit me with a shot and poked me in the eye,” Oliveira said. “I put my hand over my eye and Chandler started throwing punches, I went down, and think about how many shots I took to the back of the head. If I had lost to Michael Chandler that night, would my career have continued with the same momentum?”

Oliveira argued that the stakes surrounding Pereira’s fight amplified the problem, noting that a victory would have made Pereira a champion across three weight classes and placed enormous pressure on Gane to seize the moment.

“That’s why I think there’s a referee there to understand what’s right and what’s wrong, whether it’s time to stop the action or not,” he said. “I put all the responsibility on the referee, just like I did with the referee in my fight. In Herb Dean’s case, I think he should have stepped in.”

Oliveira stopped short of claiming the illegal strikes were decisive, acknowledging he was not inside the cage to feel their effect. His broader point, however, was clear: repeated failures by officials to police the back-of-the-head rule in high-profile bouts represent a pattern that needs to be addressed, and the Pereira-Gane fight should act as a catalyst for change.