delicious

Pretty much every big-name fight he refs is lame anymore. This time he did it again. In UFC 61 it was the Ortiz vs. Shamrock fight. Dean has been known to do some poor judging on the big fights (I still think John McCarthy should get the big ones and most title shots). As the fight was starting, I saw Dean in the octagon. My immediate reaction was “aww fuck… this isn’t gonna be good”. Shamrock gets credit for trying to explode on Ortiz as soon as the bell rang, but it’s not surprising that he’s slowed in recent years and was taken down with little effort. Everyone agrees Shamrock needs to get back to work on take down defense if he plans to continue being a stand-up fighter. He looked to be doing alright on his back, better than the first fight at least, then he takes a couple elbows to the face and Herb Dean immediately stops the fight without so much as a verbal warning. What! The! Fuck?

This is a BIG fight. You have to let these things go on a little longer. People at home and especially at the venue are putting down good money to see this shit and they need to at least get their money’s worth. Big John would have at least warned Shamrock before getting involved. When you call a fight claiming a fighter is out and he immediately stands up and contests the call, it was a bad call (if the whole arena chanting “bullshit” wasn’t enough of a clue). If he were actually out he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. But Herb Dean sucks and now Shamrocks lost 5 of his last 6 fights setting Tito up for a title shot (which I’m starting to think might have been the idea). I’m a Ken Shamrock fan. I know him so I’m not surprised he lost, but I am surprised that it was stopped in such a bullshit premature way.

This goes back to when I saw an old KOTC dvd where Herb Dean kept looking out of the ring every few seconds as if he was looking to someone else to get his cues from. I’m still trying to find out which fight it was exactly, but one fighter had to tell him his opponent tapped because Dean wasn’t paying attention. Most people saw this piss poor job he did officiating the Leben/Koscheck fight. Plus Dean won’t stand up a slow fight because he’s not sure if that’s what the fans want. Otherwise good fights end up dragging on until the fans start booing… which, to Dean, lets him know that it’s time to move things along. It’s my contention that a ref needs to be confident in thier abilities and not ref based on the will of the fans or any outside influence. It seems to me that Dean’s intent is to manufacture a dramatic upset or just sway the outcome to set up some future headlining rivalry (Shamrock/Ortiz 3 is guaranteed by this load of crap). Basically I’m getting tired wasting money to see fights ruined by Herb Dead due to poor officiating.