Alex Pereira ‘afraid’ to make UFC return, teases retirement in wake of Herb Dean scandal
· Yahoo Sports
Former UFC two-division champion Alex Pereira is not afraid of any fighter, evidenced by his courage to challenge for championship titles across three different weight classes against the toughest athletes in the world.
But when it comes to referee Herb Dean, “Poatan” is shaking in his proverbial boots.
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“Honestly, I’m afraid to go back to fighting with all this going on,” Pereira wrote in his Instagram stories. “I think I’ve already done my part.”
Pereira is referring to the “illegal” blows he endured on Dean’s watch as part of the UFC White House co-main event earlier this month in Washington, DC. Pereira was popped and dropped by Ciryl Gane in their interim heavyweight title fight, then appeared to absorb several shots to the back of the head.
The controversy appeared to lose some of its steam as time went on, then featherweight veteran Andre Fili lodged a similar complaint against the embattled Dean following his technical knockout loss to Vinicius Oliveira as part of the UFC Vegas 119 lineup last weekend in “Sin City.”
“Lots of people hitting me up about the shots to the back of the head,” Fili wrote on Instagram. “I’m very frustrated because it was an illegal shot that started the end of the fight for me. Everything else before that was covering up, I was intelligently defending myself, I was firing back, I was weathering the storm, and I knew [Oliveira would] be exhausted after that. I’m not especially happy that Herb let those go. I’m not especially happy that he let two or three of them go.”
Maybe Pereira and Fili just need a refresher on the rules, courtesy of Dean himself.