Dan Hardy doesn't regret his shouting match with Herb Dean from last year. The Englishman went on The MMA Hour to clear the air and explain what he was thinking.
“My main focus is the fighters getting protection, and he’s still present at regular events and he’s still making mistakes consistently,” Hardy said Monday on The MMA Hour (transcription via MMAFighting). “He still waves off the fights at the end of the round. He still doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. It concerns me. It really does, because at some point, our sport is going to be negatively affected by someone not doing their job, and we’re all going to be impacted by that, and we’re all going to be saddened by it.
“This weekend was a good example of that. We were close to it. Brian Ortega [at UFC 266], same situation. None of these people are going to be there in 15 or 20 years when these guys can’t remember their kids’ names. That’s the thing we have to not forget.”
Dan Hardy was referencing Herb Dean who was not present at UFC 267. That didn't stop the event from having major refereeing problems of its own though.
Dan Hardy was surprised to find Herb Dean quickly walking up to him after the fight in order to confront him. The Englishman felt it was important he speak to Dean.
“As soon as the fight was over, I am now in my spot in the broadcast, I’ve finished commentating the fight, I’ve taken off my headset so I can turn around and face the camera to interview Trinaldo, because this was the social distancing interviews,” Hardy explained. “So I’m still behind my desk. As I’m standing up, I notice that Herb Dean’s walking out of the cage and coming over to me. And Herb doesn’t move particularly quick, and he was moving quick. He was walking to my desk with a pace. So I’m not going to turn my back on him, of course, so I take my headset off, and I mute it, so you can’t hear what’s going on in the broadcast. And we had a back and forth conversation.”
After the incident, Dan Hardy went backstage where he was met by one of the producers. The producer started going off on him and wasn't happy that Hardy went up to Herb Dean to confront him.
“I never did — I stayed at my desk,” Hardy said. “And when I spoke to the UFC about it afterward, their advice to me was, ‘You should have turned your back.’ And as a martial artist, I could never do that. I can see this guy coming at me with a pace, I’m going to stand and be ready. He was leaning over my desk. So maybe in hindsight, if I’d complained about that, I might have found myself in a more protected position.”
Dan Hardy recognizes that he was in the wrong for yelling at a referee. Where he believes he is right though, is in the fact that he spoke up on behalf of the hurt fighter.
“I was in the wrong to shout at the referee on the broadcast — I’m well aware of that,” he said. “That was my error, and I’ll own that error. But I’ll stand by it, because sometimes, they need someone who will do that. If that was a silent arena on Saturday [at UFC 267], you would have heard [Daniel Cormier] and [Paul] Felder doing the same thing, halfway through the second round of a fight that went the distance, and we had nobody in there to protect that fighter.
“My concern is that the reaction to that was I was the one in the wrong, and I was the one that was shunned, even though the referee was not at all self-reflective with two late stoppages on the same card. I think the more familiar faces, they get a level of respect that is due to them, of course, but we have to make sure these people are protecting the fighters.”
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