Referee Herb Dean defends encouraging Merab Dvalishvili to “work” more in later rounds at UFC 306

MMA referee Herb Dean explained his persistence in wanting more volume and action from Merab Dvalishvili in the later rounds of the UFC 306 headliner.

Dvalishvili defeated Sean O’Malley by unanimous decision to earn the UFC bantamweight title at UFC 306. He largely dominated the fight against O’Malley with his wrestling, despite O’Malley believing he was robbed on the judges’ scorecards.

After the fight, Dean was a prominent talking point when discussing how the matchup played out. In Rounds 4 and 5, he was criticized by Joe Rogan on the UFC 306 broadcast for pushing Dvalishvili towards a higher output on the ground.

Herb Dean: “We want the fights to look like Contender Series”

In a recent interview with Helen Yee, Dean addressed criticism of his UFC 306 officiating.

“I’ve seen on social media people have spoken about me calling the fighters to act more, for more action, and that’s what I’ve always done,” Dean said. “I’m looking for effort to finish the fight. So, you’re either to posture to where you can throw potentially set up fight ending attacks or advance your position because it’s not as easy as just passing the guard, but effort to pass, effort to advance your position, effort to bring the fight to a finish. Those rules are there. That rule was put in, standing up fighters, to make our sport look the way we want it to look.” (h/t MMA Knockout/Sports Illustrated)

Dean then explained why he pushes fighters towards more action, even when the fight appears firmly in their hands.

“I think we want the fights to look like the guys that get signed on the Contender Series,” Dean explained. “That’s why they sign those guys because I think that’s what they want our sport to look like…

“Guys who maybe get ahead and are going to manage position because that’s one thing. We have position in this sport. A dominant position makes it so that you’re able to attack your opponent, and it limits their ability to attack you and if you’re not using that to progress towards a win of the fight, it can be looked at as a hiding place to ride out a win.”

Dean, before making his officiating debut, was a five-fight MMA professional. He accumulated a 2-3 record before turning his attention full-time to refereeing.