Hendo: Inexperienced Ref Cost Me the Fight with Mousasi

Mixed martial arts legend and current UFC middleweight Dan Henderson recently suffered a loss at the hands of Gegard Mousasi. During the bout, Hendo suffered a severe laceration on his eyelid which he knew would put a stop to the fight.

Knowing this, Henderson rushed in and attacked Mousasi so the referee or doctors didn’t step in to end the bout due to injury. Instead, Henderson got cracked and stumbled back. The referee stepped in to wave the fight off anyway due to the fact that it looked like Hendo was rocked.

“The fight just started. I was getting the feel of his speed and I slipped a punch and something sliced my eyelid open,” Hendo told Rick J Lee in a recent sit-down interview. “And then he starts pointing at it. I kind of knew that it probably wasn’t good at didn’t want the ref to stop it to have the doctor look at it. So, I kind of rushed in and he dinged me a little bit— I felt off balance and stumbled back and the ref jumped in.”

Henderson claims he was fine and chalks the bad stoppage up to the lack of experience from the referee. “It was just unfortunate that you have a ref that inexperienced in a fight like that. I think the fans missed out. It wasn’t fair to me. It wasn’t fair to Mousasi. It was a win for [Mousasi] but it was more because the ref f***** up.”

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