UFC referee Herb Dean recently opened up about how he was once threatened by Chuck Liddell before one of his fights. While Dean has been officiating fights for over two decades now, he is mostly spot-on with his calls. However, even the best of referees slip up occasionally, and Liddell’s threats helped keep Dean on his toes.
The veteran UFC referee recently appeared on the ‘The Casuals MMA by OOSS Media’ podcast, where he talked about MMA refereeing in detail. Eventually, the hosts asked Herb Dean if he had ever been threatened by any fighter, and the 53-year-old narrated the story of being preemptively threatened by Chuck Liddell.
“Probably some. Chuck Liddell used to try and make preemptive threats. He would be like ‘I saw what happened with this fight earlier on that you did, if you do that to me I am whopping your a**.”
While it is not common, there have been many instances where a fight has been stopped too early or officiated unfairly. This affects the fighters adversely in more ways than one. For starters, the way the UFC model is built, fighters get paid a certain sum to show up and a certain sum if they win.
Therefore, a bad refereeing call takes away a significant portion of their earnings. Secondly, an unfair loss sets back a fighter in terms of ranking and win streak. They then have to go through the process all over again for no fault of their own.
Herb Dean reveals scary moments inside the octagon
In the same interview, Dean was asked about the scariest moments he had been a part of inside the octagon. The 53-year-old stated that heavyweight fights have always been a nervy affair for him. He went on to share an incident where he got punched by Daniel Cormier. At the end of their first fight, Cormier and Jones exchanged blows after the final whistle was blown.
One of the punches thrown by Cormier landed with all of its might on Herb Dean who was trying to separate the two men. Dean joked that he was able to take it as it was at the end of the fifth round. However, if it was in the first round, the story would have been completely different.
