Veteran referee Herb Dean will referee Conor McGregor for the seventh time in McGregor’s UFC career.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has assigned Dean to oversee Saturday’s UFC 246 headliner between McGregor and Donald Cerrone at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NSAC chief assistant Jeff Mullen told MMA Fighting on Wednesday.
Dean’s pay has not been determined as of this writing, but he previously took home $1,900 for reffing McGregor’s previous octagon trip, a blockbuster against lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229. That fight produced a minor controversy over Dean’s choice not to intervene when McGregor “hooked” Nurmagomedov’s gloves and grabbed his shorts. In a video, Dean countered that the infractions didn’t affect Nurmagomedov enough to justify stopping the bout.
Saturday’s bout marks the 12th time Dean has refereed Cerrone. The NSAC has also assigned veteran judges Sal D’Amato, Chris Lee and Derek Cleary to score the fight; they are among the most active and experienced judges working in MMA. Cleary previously awarded McGregor a 48-47 score in his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202, according to MMADecisions.com.
Pay for the judges has not been determined, but previous UFC pay-per-view headliners have received $1,600 for their work.
Disclosed fighter salaries will be released on Friday. McGregor reportedly will make $5 million, but has said his overall pay will be $80 million, a sum several insiders and Cerrone doubt.
crazytoe on January 15th, 2020 at 22:23 UTC »
Conor, if you grab the fence I'll have no choice but to warn you 28 more times
Jeriba on January 15th, 2020 at 21:07 UTC »
Oh shit.
He's most of the time pretty solid but when it comes to certain interests...
MysticSlap on January 15th, 2020 at 20:25 UTC »
I hope this is kind of a ‘go redeem yourself Herb’ kind of gig and not a ‘great job last time Herb, keep it up’ type showing.