Issue 021

January 2007

Part of the sport since its very inception, Herb Dean is recognised around the globe as one of the most experienced (not to mention proficient) referees in the business. As every ref should expect, Herb has been the subject of some criticism in recent times following what was seen as a premature stoppage in the second match between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. Taking time out of his hectic schedule, Herb spoke to Jim Page to give his version of events and give his genuine thoughts on being a high profile referee in a sport that he loves.

Herb began by talking about how he got involved in MMA, giving an insight into how he got started as the third man in the cage. “I’ve always been around the sport. I used to kickbox and whatnot and in the first UFC, one of the kickboxing guys that I worked out with, Zane Frasier, was in it, so I’ve always been interested in it. We’d been trying to train MMA to get him prepared for his match. Since then, I’ve been around the sport and I ended up hooking up with Larry Landless – a wrestling coach who was doing some submission fighting. He had a gym and we would put on fights, so I trained with him, you know, we’d put on small Pankration style matches. We’d do smokers [unlicensed fights] with the Lion’s Den and Larry started refereeing.

“In California, most of the matches are on Indian reservations, so a lot of the time you are out in the middle of nowhere, and you’ve got to bring order to this thing where every Alpha male in the surrounding area is there. So you bring some guys to support you and whatnot and I helped them do the job that the [Nevada State Athletic] Commission would do, inspecting the guys back stage.”

Helping out at shows suddenly took on a life of its own for Herb, as he explains, “Eventually, one time I went to a show where I had to work too hard in my opinion… at the first King of the Cage. I’d come to help, to volunteer and help you out so I can watch the fights, but if I don’t get to watch the fights, you’ve got to pay me! Of course, he [the promoter] always said he was going to make it up to me and send me stuff, but he never did… so I said, ‘Forget about it, just let me referee a match’, he did, and I ended up shadowing there and training under Larry to referee matches, so I started off refereeing one match, then I would shadow Larry and be the sub ref for his matches. So, sure I started doing more and more matches.”

Moving on to some of the big decisions that he has had to make in the cage, Herb gave his account of the gruesome ending to the fight between Frank Mir and Tim Sylvia. “I’m not going to stop a match for a guy who’s arm has been submitted, who’s elbow has bowed a little bit, his joint’s popped a bit… I’ll let him make that decision, but I could tell that his [Tim’s] forearm had been cracked, it was broken and I’m not going to let him continue fighting like that. I had a pretty good position; I could even hear it break. I heard the break – I didn’t realise what it was that I had heard, and after I saw the break I thought, ‘Wow, that sound was his arm snapping.’ I stopped the fight; I knew that I had made the right decision. But I took a lot of heat, because nobody realised that the decision was the right one. I wasn’t sure whether the replay was going to catch it or not, I’d made the call, I stuck to my guns. You know, they were trying to get me to restart the fight, and I’m like, ‘No I’m not going to restart it, his arm’s broken.’ Lucky it was caught on tape so I was vindicated!”

Having cameras around the stadium catching details that are lost on the crowd has not always had such positive effects in Herb’s career. Able to slow down the footage frame by frame, a large number of fans were still deeply critical of his stoppage of the second fight between Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz. Herb took his chance to set the record straight. “I feel I made the right decision from the beginning, I thought about it – nobody wants to get bottles thrown at them – but what could I do, let Ken get hurt so that people aren’t throwing bottles at me? I can’t think of a reason to let that fight go on any longer. I’d seen that he’d taken five or six elbows; I saw that he was not going to stop the next elbow - he was taking those elbows because he was unable to stop them. I saw no reason to let him take another one, so I stopped it. The fans weren’t happy with it; they wanted to see more of a fight. I really wanted to see more of a fight too, but I can’t help that.” 

On the brighter side, Herb pointed out that there was no ill-feeling between him and the UFC as a result of his judgement call. “I think the UFC management, they may not say that publicly, maybe they will later on, but they believe that it was the right decision. But they are the management; they need to make money, so of course they are going to say ‘We’re going to give the fans what they missed out on.’ So I’m not saying that the UFC management threw me under the bus with it… they saw an opportunity to make another fight, so they did. But they never questioned my stoppage.” 

On the actual experience of refereeing a fight between two tough combat athletes, Herb stressed the need to stay on your toes at all times. “Sometimes guys want to keep fighting afterwards – you’ve got to get in there and be a little physical, being an MMA referee you’ve got to be ready to get physical at any time. The fighters go to the very end, to the very last minute, nobody wants to give up. If they tap [due to an armbar], then that arm is ready to go, so you’ve got to be ready to jump in there at any time and try to save that limb, you know what I mean? There’s no standing 8 count, if you stop it due to punches, the guy is unconscious. So if the guy didn’t want to stop, you’ve got to be ready to go. You give him the chance to be a gentleman, but if he wants to continue fighting…”

As the man charged with looking out for a constant stream of competitors, Herb takes notes of the safety procedures in place as he travels between shows, noting innovations that could be copied elsewhere. “I look at every cage that I’m in and see the design and sometimes I see things in their cages which are really well done and it could be copied in the next cage. It could be a latching mechanism, or something as simple as turning all the supports in a way so that all the things that can hurt you are on the outside or having a bar on the bottom of the cage that can be used as a hard surface to slam the guy on, even if it’s padded. It’s countless different things I see like that. I want to tell the athletic commissions about the things I see out there and they are probably going to make it a requirement to make a cage that is as safe as possible.

“When you go to the IFL, they have a ring with a really big apron around it, you think that’s something that everyone would think to have, because it takes away the possibility of guys falling out of the ring and on their head. So there’s always something you see different.”

Wrapping up the interview, Herb spoke fondly on his trip to the UK. “I really enjoy coming over to England and refereeing matches. I refereed King of the Cage and Cage Rage. The English fighters were really tough… I like the vibe of Cage Rage, it was really intense. I definitely enjoyed hanging out in Northern England; I went out, the cities are a lot different to ours, they’re more set up for you to walk around and just enjoy the city. I had a lot of fun in England. I’d like to fight in England. I was going to fight before, but then I got injured, so I kind of feel I owe the English people a fight, I want to fight over there in Cage Rage… I feel like I owe those guys.”