Alex Pereira fell short in a seemingly impossible conquest to become UFC's first three-division champion. A second-round TKO loss to Ciryl Gane at UFC Freedom 250 crushed those hopes, but the path there has Pereira irate. "Poatan" condemned potential illegal strikes from Gane that preceded the finish, with much of his anger directed towards referee Herb Dean.
Gane stopped Pereira early in Round 2 after a stiff jab dropped the former middleweight and light heavyweight champion. From there, Gane unleashed ground strikes -- several of which appeared to strike the back of the head -- before finishing him on the feet. Pereira bemoaned Gane aggressively pursuing the finish at the expense of fair play.
"It was a lucky jab," Pereira said in a YouTube video, though he took no issue with the strike that dropped him. "He took advantage and started landing heavier shots."
"He's desperate. He threw a shot he didn't even believe in, and he wanted to finish the fight whatever way. He always does that. In multiple fights, if you look at his highlights, that's what you'll see all the time."
Gane has developed a reputation as a dirty fighter among the MMA fanbase. He rejected that label in a pre-fight interview with CBS Sports, but his complicated legacy took another hit on Sunday. Pereira came into the fight conscious of illegal strikes headed his way. Even Sean O'Malley said on Sunday that he was in the training room with Pereira when he was discussing potential illegal strikes from Gane.
"You know what's funny, in the rules meeting when Pereira was talking to the ref," O'Malley said. "They were having the translator go over back of the head."
Pereira, the former two-division champion, had some sympathy for eye pokes and groin strikes, things that can happen by accident in a dynamic exchange. However, he sees no way to forgive strikes to the back of the head.
"I was getting up, and it became difficult to recover," Pereira said. "I believe if it wasn't for those shots, I'd be in that situation and could've possibly recovered. Maybe not, but those shots were very hard and illegal."
"A punch to the back of the head -- you're right there, man. You have to be seeing it," he mentioned earlier in the video. "That was the opportunity of a lifetime for him, and the referee was right there to see it."
The Unified Rules of MMA ban strikes to the back of the head and spine. The illegal target zone is defined as "the area starting at the crown of the head and running directly down the centerline of the head with a one-inch variance to each side."
Pereira claims he approached Dean with his concerns before the fight. Plino Cruz, Pereira's coach, served as an interpreter between Pereira and Dean.
"The referee who was working my fight called his colleague over, another referee," Pereira said. "He used him as an example to explain where the back of the head is, where you can hit, and where you can't."
Pereira was incredibly frustrated with Dean's officiating. Often revered for his stoicism, Pereira had a scathing assessment of Dean's character.
"A guy like that, he goes out, drinks his beer or drinks his seltzer water, or whatever. He gets together with his friends. If he has kids or a nephew, I think that, no, I'm certain, that they look at that ref and say, 'He's a coward.' But they're his friends, they won't say that to him. But they think it, 'He's a coward.' Because he was a coward," Pereira said.
Pereira believes Dean failed to keep the fight clean and the fighters safe. He called for Dean to be punished or face legal action for his failure to do his job well.
"He is not a man. He shouldn't have been refereeing that fight," Pereira said. "To be honest, a guy like that should be punished. It's a very serious job and a very serious event. What happened? The ref should've faced legal consequences for that."
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Commission accountability is an issue that's plagued MMA for as long as it's been regulated. Results are rarely overturned, while judges and referees are seldom punished for poor calls or made available for comment. After his loss at UFC Freedom 250, Pereira called for fighters to unite and make referees liable.
"This will only change when fighters come together to push out referees who continue making mistakes like this," Pereira said. " Let's make sure this doesn't happen to you. We have the power to make it happen!"
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