Gregory Rodrigues has defended Herb Dean over claims that he was too late in stepping in during a terrifying sequence at UFC 317.
This past week, International Fight Week 2025 took place from Las Vegas and culminated with UFC 317 which was headlined by a vacant lightweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Charles Oliveira.
Topuria went on to become the new lightweight champion after knocking Oliveira out cold in the very first round, continuing his rise to superstardom.
However, despite ‘El Matador’s’ KO being extremely vicious, there was a knockout on the prelims that might have topped it.
Gregory Rodrigues defends Herb Dean over late stoppage calls
In the featured prelim, hard-hitting middleweight Gregory Rodrigues took on slick grappler Jack Hermansson.
The fight didn’t make it out of the first round as the Brazilian landed a crushing left hook on the chin of ‘The Joker’, which sent him down to the canvas immediately.
Despite already being unconscious by the time he hit the floor, Rodrigues followed up with a huge hammer fist just seconds later.
The commentary team of Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier were extremely critical of both Rodrigues and the referee in charge, Herb Dean, for the late stoppage and unnecessary hammer fist. Hermansson was unfortunately down and out for a few minutes in what was a scary scene.
However, now days removed from the fight, Rodrigues has came out and defended Dean over claims that he was too slow in stopping the fight.
“Everyone was talking about (how Herb Dean was slow) but, man, I think the people are never gonna understand what happens inside the Octagon,” Rodrigues told Ariel Helwani.
“It was less than a second, man, from you thinking to the next motion… Herb Dean he did his job I think, he was there and he took me away. The people are always going to complain about something… I don’t care about that,” he continued.
Jack Hermansson reacted to his KO loss
Just a few days after his brutal loss, Hermansson reacted to the brutal loss by congratulating his opponent for scoring the win.
Since then, ‘Robocop’ Rodrigues has refused to apologise as he believes it is just part of the sport and he doesn’t believe the final hammer fist was unnecessary.