We haven’t seen or heard much from Dan Hardy since UFC Fight Island 3, where Hardy and referee Herb Dean had a verbal confrontation. Hardy told The MMA Hour that he regrets nothing about the incident, despite its fallout, and wishes the promotion would do more to ensure fighter safety in the cage.
“My main focus is the fighters getting protection, and he’s still present at regular events and he’s still making mistakes consistently.
Dan Hardy Has No Regrets on Calling Herb Dean Out, Despite Career Fallout
He still waves off the fights at the end of the round. He still doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. It concerns me. It really does, because at some point, our sport is going to be negatively affected by someone not doing their job, and we’re all going to be impacted by that, and we’re all going to be saddened by it.
This weekend was a good example of that. We were close to it. Brian Ortega [at UFC 266], same situation. None of these people are going to be there in 15 or 20 years when these guys can’t remember their kids’ names. That’s the thing we have to not forget.”
Hardy, of course, is referencing the UFC 267 prelim fight in which referee Vyacheslav Kiselev allowed Benoit Saint-Denis to endure an obscene number of unanswered strikes from Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos, which Herb Dean did not officiate. Dean did, however, controversially allow Brian Ortega to continue fighting against Alexander Volkanovski despite apparently failing several cognitive tests.
At UFC Fight Island 3, Hardy yelled at Herb Dean to stop a fight between Jai Herbert and Francisco Trinaldo when the former hit the canvas, believing him to be unconscious. Afterward, Dean and Hardy confronted one another, and the UFC sanctioned Hardy for criticizing the referee on a broadcast.
“I was in the wrong to shout at the referee on the broadcast — I’m well aware of that.
That was my error, and I’ll own that error. But I’ll stand by it, because sometimes, they need someone who will do that. If that was a silent arena on Saturday [at UFC 267], you would have heard [Daniel Cormier] and [Paul] Felder doing the same thing, halfway through the second round of a fight that went the distance, and we had nobody in there to protect that fighter.
My concern is that the reaction to that was I was the one in the wrong, and I was the one that was shunned, even though the referee was not at all self-reflective with two late stoppages on the same card.
I think the more familiar faces, they get a level of respect that is due to them, of course, but we have to make sure these people are protecting the fighters.”
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