NSAC head believes Robbie Lawler was ‘clearly out’

Fighters don’t fight perfectly and referees don’t referee perfectly and at UFC 235, Herb Dean, an incredible referee, made an incredibly bad call. All it means is he’s human.

The replay clearly shows Dean holding Robbie Lawler’s hard in an attempt to determine if he is conscious, as he asks ‘Ruthless’ if he is OK. Lawler then unambiguously gives a thumbs up, and Dean inexplicably stops the fight, as anyone can see at the 0:52 mark:

https://twitter.com/Hamderlei/status/1102063167574814720

At the post-fight press conference, NSAC executive director Bob Bennett offered an alternative narrative.

In this particular question with the bulldog choke on Robbie, you could see it right in front of us that when Herb picked up his hand, his hand just dropped, said Bennett, as transcribed by Ryan Harkness for MMA Mania. It just dropped, which would be indicative of him being out. And then [Dean] went ahead and grabbed his hand again and it came up a little and it moved ever so slightly. There was no doubt in our mind that he was out.

You can argue, if you’ve ever been choked out or knocked out, there’s times where you know you’ve been choked or knocked out, and there’s times where you say ‘What the hell happened?’ I was never a professional fighter, but I’ve had it happen to me. Cuz someone asked me that tonight and I thought it was kinda freakin’ inappropriate. So I’ll bring that to the table right now.

With the Nevada State Athletic Commission, our number one priority is the health and safety of the fighter. n our pre-brief fights, I specifically instruct the referees to make sure we stop the fight one punch or one kick sooner than later. In the interest of the health and safety of the fighter, Robbie’s a phenomenal warrior, he’s been in the business for a long time. He was clearly out.

I can tell you right now as the executive director and on behalf of the commission, no one had a problem with that.