Herb Dean shared his thoughts on the decision he made in Phumi Nkuta’s fight this past weekend.
Fans immediately criticized Dean’s call on Saturday night after many felt like Adriano Moraes cheated to get his hand raised.
The Brazilian’s opponent, Nkuta, was choked unconscious but only after Moraes continued to hold the submission past the final bell.
With Nkuta’s team officially appealing the outcome, Dean is incredibly confident that he and the officials were able to make the correct decision in the moment.
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Herb Dean is confident that Phumi Nkuta was unconscious before the bell sounded at MVP MMA
Herb Dean said on The Ariel Helwani Show on Monday that he’s “certain that the right decision was made” when reflecting on the end of Adriano Moraes’ win.
He went step-by-step through the process they underwent in that moment before coming to the decision that Phumi Nkuta was unconscious before the round ended.
Dean added that he didn’t feel like Moraes holding onto the choke was worthy of a disqualification because he believes it was only held for a “fraction of a second”.
“Definitely sure that he [Nkuta] went unconscious before the bell, right like a fraction of a second before the bell,” he said, “Then I went and stopped the fight. He [Moraes] grabbed for a fraction of a second and then let go.”
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The scorecards revealed that two judges had Nkuta winning both the first and second rounds, meaning that he had a very good chance of winning the fight if it had been judged that he didn’t go unconscious before the final bell.
Dean said that while there was the option of going to the scorecards instead due to it being Moraes’ fault that the result was unclear, this wasn’t pushed for.
The official result at this time is that Moraes won via submission at 4:59 of the third round.
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