Herb Dean recently weighed in on some of the discourse regarding Khamzat Chimaev's championship winning performance on August 16th and a specific decision made during the contest from a regulatory perspective. During an interview with Helen Yee Sports, Herb Dean touched upon Khamzat Chimaev having one of the more dominant performances in UFC history over previous champion
Some observers have called the grappling heavy performance boring or tantamount to stalling which did lead to a stand up not onc ebut twice from assigned in-cage official Marc Goddard. Conversely, some saw the refinement of skill needed to dominate an opponent of that caliber.
Considering he is one of the more tenured referees in the game and has a lot of localized insights on the craft in the context of how he perceived the story that unfurled in the UFC 319 main event and Marc Goddard's decision making in that DDP vs. 'Borz' bout, Dean said,
“It’s an ongoing conversation that everyone and the stakeholders and everyone in the sport has, but what do we want this sport to look like? Do we want people to achieve a dominant position, which if you’re not using it to beat your opponent could almost be looked at as a hiding place, a place to burn time? I’m never gonna accuse Khamzat of hiding, because the man’s a savage."
"But if you get a position, like, we can break that one down, the crucifix chest-to-chest position, not a lot of height, very difficult to get a place where you can punch your opponent. Sometimes he’s able to get elbows and you want to reward people, but at the same time, you want to reward someone with a 10-8 for trying to finish their opponent, for taking a risk. It takes a risk to make some space to posture, where you’re going to be able to maybe finish the fight. And I think that’s what we want our sport to look like.”
Khamzat Chimaev and fighters in general "should be trying to work for a finish" says Dean
Further discussing aspects of Khamzat Chimaev's record breaking 185 pound title win in Chicago, Dean continued,
“We want people, if they have a dominant position, we want to see effort to finish the fight, effort to initiate fight-ending sequences. That’s what we’re looking for. If someone’s not in a position where they're maintaining a safe position but they're not able to diminish their opponent and finish the fight, then that's a situation where people are going to get a warning to work. And when they say work, you know, I think you always should be trying to work for a finish.”
