CB Dollaway on Herb Dean: ‘I don’t feel like I got protected. He didn’t stop the fight. Ever.’

If there is one thing that is frustrating for everyone, regardless of what’s being involved…it’s when someone can’t seem to do their job right. This happened to be a case at the recent UFC Moscow event.

In said recent case, UFC veteran CB Dollaway took on the debuting Khalid Murtazaliev.

Dollaway would end up getting bested by the Russian newcomer as the second round came to the close. Problem is, the fight clearly should have been stopped prior to the end of round bell. Take a look for yourself.

https://twitter.com/Hamderlei/status/1041025577703096320

Refereeing the fight was Herb Dean who is one of the more notable names when it comes to MMA officiating.

The point of the referee is to keep the fighters safe and prevent them from taking unnecessary damage. Thus the whole point of intelligent defense.

After being on the wrong side of such an egregious no-call, Dollaway admitted that he didn’t want to continue fighting despite Dean’s directing as he told MMAFighting.

“I’ve been on the other side before, where I thought a fight got stopped too early for me,” Dollaway said, “But, being on the other side now, it’s like…it’s a rough job being a ref, they want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, you’re there to protect us, and I don’t know what was going on, but I don’t feel like I got protected. He didn’t stop the fight. Ever. Like, he was telling me to get on the stool and I didn’t even want to fight. Like, ‘Dude, I’m done.’ I was pretty out of it. I’m going to go out and take more punishment, that’s all that was going to basically happen at that point. I understand being a referee’s a tough job, we all make mistakes in life. It just sucks when it’s you.

He was telling me to get on the stool. That’s kinda the part, I guess, I have a little trouble with. When a fighter says they’re done, especially…I don’t really have to say much, the MMA community saw it, you saw it, people saw what happened, and then you have me saying I’m done, and for him to be telling me to get up off the stool, I don’t know. Thank God I knew enough was enough, or it could’ve been even more serious.”

For the career middleweight Dollaway, this was his second fight after making a debut in the light heavyweight division after competing professionally since 2006.

Now at age 35, Dollaway realizes he’s getting older and can’t recover in the same ways that he used to earlier on in his career. Which doesn’t help the fact that he took the amount of damage he did in his last time out.

“Like, how far [does it go]? That’s the thing, they want to give you the benefit of the doubt, try to get you to the end of the round or the fighters a chance, but there’s a catch 22. He stops it too early, everyone dogs him for that. Stop it too late, everyone dogs him for that. So it’s just not an easy job, but that is your f*cking job. At the end of the day, that’s your job. You’re the one who took that job, and the same goes for me. I know what it is when I go in there. We’re not playing patty-cake. It’s a dangerous job and, yeah, unfortunately, I got a pretty good taste of what it could be.

I’m not making enough money to kill myself to get down to 185. And I’m 35 years old, I’ve been doing this 10 years, my body just can’t recover. When I was 25 or 28, that cut, you could bounce back from. But I’m already 220 pounds, so do the math, that’s not a fun cut. So yeah, I’d rather fight at 205 and enjoy what I do, not almost die during fight week in the weight cut, and then possibly in the fight not almost die. Just to have a little fun, I guess. It’s a dangerous sport, it’s not for everybody obviously, but I think the move to 205 will be better for me just to have more energy to be able to protect myself at all times. But at the end of the day, if you get hurt in a fight, the ref’s supposed to be there to protect you.

It’s a tough job. I understand it. You get criticism from both sides. Like I said, you stop it too early, you get criticized, you stop it too late. And I’ve had fights that I thought were stopped too early and protested, but the ref needs to say, ‘F*ck you, I’m here to protect you,’ basically. Like, ‘Shut up.’ But like I said, it’s a cold game that we play.”

In Dollaway’s fight with Hector Lombard before this last one, he was also in a controversial situation as he earned a disqualification victory after being hit after the bell.

on 9/25/2018