Alex Pereira demands ‘legal consequences’ for referee in scathing first statement after Ciryl Gane defeat

Alex Pereira is furious with the level of officiating during his UFC Freedom 250 co-headliner with Ciryl Gane.

‘Poatana’ suffered a second-round TKO loss to Gane on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday night as his quest to become the first three-division champion in UFC history ended in disaster.

Gane dropped Pereira with a jab midway through the round before following up with a series of strikes to his grounded foe.

Many of the shots appeared to land on the back of Pereira’s head, and while he was able to make his way back to his feet, he was eventually stopped against the cage.

Herb Dean was the third man in the Octagon for the interim heavyweight title clash, and Pereira has berated the veteran referee for his lack of intervention after the illegal strikes landed.

“Putting myself in the referee’s shoes, my opponent’s there and catches me, I drop, he starts striking,” Pereira said on his YouTube channel.

“The ref is watching that they are illegal shots, but he thinks like this, ‘How am I going to stop this fight?’

“It’s illegal, it’s in the rules. You’re not going to be wrong if you stop it. It’s in the rules; you stop it.

“If people say, ‘Why did you stop it?’ Look at the video; nobody was going to say anything about the ref. In that scenario, people give him credit as a man.

“But now he is not a man. He shouldn’t have been refereeing that fight.

“To be honest, a guy like that should be punished.

“That’s how it is. It’s a very serious job. It’s a very serious event.

“What happened, the ref should’ve faced legal consequences for that.”

Ciryl Gane’s history of fouls

Pereira is particularly aggrieved with Dean, as he took him to one side before the bout to highlight Gane’s history of committing fouls.

The Frenchman’s last outing against Tom Aspinall ended in a no-contest after he poked the undisputed champion in the eyes.

He was also previously accused of elbowing former UFC heavyweight titlist Junior Dos Santos on the back of the head when they locked horns back in December 2020.

“After the jab I dropped, I grabbed his legs,” Pereira added.

“It was there, throwing elbows, punches, he’s desperate. He threw a shot he didn’t even believe in, and he wanted to finish the fight in whatever way.

“He always does that, multiple fights, if you look at his highlights, that’s what you’ll see all the time. I was being very careful about that.

“Finger in the eye, kick to the groin, that there isn’t supposed to happen, but it does.

“Even I could potentially do that, but not because I meant to.

“It’s a contact sport, but on the back of the head? You’re right there, man, you have to be seeing it.

“But that was the opportunity of a lifetime for him, and the referee was right there to see it. The day before the fight, we had a rules meeting.

“I asked [coach] Plinio [Cruz] to translate for him, and I told him, ‘Look, man, eye poke, groin strikes, those things can happen.

“It’s not supposed to, but it can happen. But this guy has a long history of it.’

“Dirty shots, throwing punches to the back of the head, elbows.

“I saw some videos, so I was worried. So I brought that up with him ahead of time and asked him to keep an eye on it.”

“If you watch the footage, multiple shots there, multiple elbows,” Pereira continued.

“Okay, sure, the jab, but given everything that happened, illegal.

“I was getting up, it became difficult to recover, but I believe that if it wasn’t for those shots I [wouldn’t] be in that situation and could’ve possibly recovered. Maybe not, but they were very hard shots and illegal.”

Pereira isn’t alone in his assessment with Aspinall also highlighting the illegal shots during a recent reaction video.