Pereira demands rematch and calls for Herb Dean's punishment after illegal elbows in UFC White House loss to Gane

Alex Pereira has called for referee Herb Dean to face punishment after losing the interim UFC heavyweight title to Ciryl Gane at UFC White House on Sunday, claiming Dean failed to intervene when Gane landed multiple illegal 12-to-6 elbows to the back of his head before finishing the fight at 1:27 of Round 2.

“Poatan” acknowledged that a Gane jab had rocked him before the sequence in question, but argued the illegal strikes prevented him from recovering. “If you watch the footage, multiple shots there, multiple elbows,” Pereira said. “OK, sure, the jab, but given everything that happened, illegal. I was getting up, it became difficult to recover, but I believe that if it wasn’t for those shots I [wouldn’t] be in that situation and could’ve possibly recovered. Maybe not, but they were very hard shots and illegal.”

Pereira was direct in his assessment of Dean’s performance, stopping short of any sympathy for the veteran official. “The ref is watching that they are illegal shots, but he thinks like this, ‘How am I going to stop this fight?’ It’s illegal, it’s in the rules. You’re not going to be wrong if you stop it,” he said. “He shouldn’t have been refereeing that fight. To be honest, a guy like that should be punished. That’s how it is. It’s a very serious job. It’s a very serious event. What happened, the ref should’ve faced legal consequences for that.”

The Brazilian said his concerns about Gane’s foul history were not a surprise to him — he had raised them at the pre-fight rules meeting the day before. “I asked Plinio to translate for him, and 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. “Dirty shots, throwing punches to the back of the head, elbows. I saw some videos, so I was worried. So I brought that up with him ahead of time and asked him to keep an eye on it.”

Despite the defeat, Pereira has already requested an immediate rematch from the UFC. Gane, however, is expected to face undisputed heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall in a title unification bout, making it unclear whether the promotion will grant Pereira’s request.