Eduardo Herdy’s days as a UFC referee could be numbered after he made two absolutely abysmal calls at Fight Night 62.
Now there is a guy who should NEVER ref again!!!!
— danawhite (@danawhite) March 22, 2015
His first howler came during the early prelims when Christos Giagos submitted Jorge Oliveira with a rear-naked choke in the opening stanza. However, Herdy seemed to be enjoying Giagos’ submission so much that he was reluctant to end the fight, despite his opponent tapping several times out of desperation.
Even UFC commentator Jon Anik said “there’s the tap” almost instantly but Herdy apparently did not, despite being less than a foot away from the action. Oliveira looked like he was on the verge of being put to sleep when Herdy finally intervened.
Herdy somehow managed to to take his incompetence up another notch during the bout between Drew Dober and Leandro Silva on the preliminary card.
The Brazilian was working an arm-in guillotine choke on Dober in the first round which, from half-guard didn’t pose any major threat to the American. In fact, Dober was very close to pulling his head free from the choke when Herdy inexplicably stopped the fight and awarded Silva the technical submission victory.
Herdy grabbed Dober’s left arm and deemed him to be unconscious, even though he was clearly wide awake and then ended the fight ludicrously early. Dober was actually trying to position his left arm on the mat to get into a different position when he escaped the squeeze..
Dana White confirmed after the event that Dober will be receiving his win bonus for the bout. He also also believes result should be changed to a no contest because of the abysmal call from Herdy.
