Alexander Volkanovski believes Alex Pereira absorbed illegal shots in his loss against Ciryl Gane.
Pereira (13-4) fought Gane (14-2) for an interim heavyweight title earlier this month at UFC White House. While Gane finished Pereira in the second round, it was not without controversy. “Bon Gamin” was seen landing multiple illegal shots to the back of Pereira’s head without any warning from referee Herb Dean. Pereira has since called for fighters to raise their voice for referees to be held accountable for illegal shots.
Volkanovski has now extended his support to Pereira. Volkanovski believes Dean should have severely warned Gane while he was hitting “Poatan” on the back of the head.
“Herb, I love you, mate, but you should have been pretty vocal, ‘Watch the back of the head.’… I don’t want to throw shade on people, but there was a lot of back of the head shots,” Volkanovski said on YouTube. “If it was someone I didn’t like that did that, I’d probably be a lot more clear with how I’m saying this… We need to have that discussion, and we’re having that discussion. Pereira’s asking for people to speak about it, here I am.”
Dean recently released a video defending his stance regarding the alleged back-of-the-head shots. Dean says he only considers blows illegal in the Mohawk region of the back of the head.
