To say that Alex Pereira was unhappy with the way that his Heavyweight title fight with Ciryl Gane at UFC Freedom 250 ended would be an understatement.
Pereira lost the fight by TKO in the second round, but he thinks that his loss was the result of illegal blows to the back of the head by Gane, and he called out both Gane for delivering the blows and referee Herb Dean for allowing them.
“I think if it weren’t for those punches, I wouldn’t be in that situation,” Pereira said. “When the jab landed, I fell and grabbed his legs. Throwing elbows and punches, the guy was desperate. He landed a punch that he couldn’t even believe, and then he wanted to end the fight no matter what. The ref was there watching. … The guy sees it’s an illegal hit, but he’s there thinking, ‘Bro, how can I stop this fight?’
“Man, it’s the regulations. It’s in the rulebook,” Pereira added. “You’re wrong if you don’t stop [the illegal strikes]. That’s in the rules. What makes me more upset is that I warned him beforehand. But the guy doesn’t have the guts. He’s not a real man.”
Per ESPN, Pereira’s team is looking into options to get the questionable strikes reviewed at a future meeting of U.S. athletic commissions.
This is the second straight fight that has ended with some level of controversy for Gane, who was flagged for an eye-poke during his Heavyweight title fight with Tom Aspinall last October. As a result, Aspinall was unable to continue the fight, which resulted in a no-contest.
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