According to Jordan Breen on his radio show, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board has revealed the referee and judges for the main event of UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones. Herb Dean will join Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Jon Jones in the cage while Cardo Urso, Dave Tirelli, and Douglas Crosby will judge the fight from cageside.
Dean is well-known to MMA fans. He officiated the last UFC pay-per-view main event between B.J. Penn and Jon Fitch at UFC 127. He refereed Jones’ last fight against Ryan Bader at UFC 126, in addition to his Versus main events against Vladimir Matyushenko and Brandon Vera. His lone fight with Rua was at UFC 104 in Rua’s first fight with Lyoto Machida.
Cardo Urso has judged in Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvia, and Virginia. He scored the George Roop draw with Leonard Garcia 29-27 for Garcia at WEC 47, and was the dissenting judge in Alessio Sakara’s victory over Thales Leites at UFC 101. This will be his second UFC main event, having judged Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy at UFC 111.
Dave Tirelli’s lone UFC bout was at UFC 111 between Jared Hamman and Rodney Wallace.
Douglas Crosby is a veteran judge in the sport, most known for his bizarre Hunter S. Thompson stream-of-consciousness rant following the UFC 112 main event in Abu Dhabi between Penn and Frankie Edgar. Crosby was the dissenting judge in Yoshihiro Akiyama’s victory over Alan Belcher at UFC 100 and Nate Diaz’s victory over Josh Neer at UFC Fight Night 15. Crosby scored the Roop/Garcia fight 29-27 for Roop.
Urso, Tirelli, and Crosby also scored Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva, Andrei Arlovski vs. Sergei Kharitonov, and Shane del Rosario vs. Lavar Johnson at Strikeforce’s April 12th show in New Jersey.