Former two-division UFC champion Alex Pereira is devastated after missing out on a historic opportunity to be the first three-division champion in UFC history at the promotion’s Freedom 250 event this past Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House. After getting knocked out by Ciryl Gane in the second round of their interim heavyweight title fight, ‘Poatan’ is not only appealing the loss but has now also threatened to sue referee Herb Dean over his apparent inability to stop Gane from landing illegal strikes to the back os his head.

If Alex Pereira follows through on his plan, it will be a wild, first-of-its-kind moment in MMA history.

“Are we saying these shots could’ve switched the results of the fights? It could have. It could not have,” Pereira told MMA Junkie in his native Portuguese. “We’re not blaming it on this. But maybe with all those shots, I could’ve came back much better on the feet than when I took all those shots.

“The more it started sinking in my head, I saw how bad was the referee’s posture. He did not look to protect my physical integrity of that fight, which is his job.”

‘Poatan’ didn’t back down from his plans to take the fight outside the Octagon, adding that he had a lengthy talk with his manager and that they want to pursue this legally with their lawyers.

“I had a long conversation with my manager last night,” Alex Pereira added. “We are going to pursue this legally. We’re going to talk to our lawyers. The bill is going to come from some people.”

He even claimed Dean won’t be a part of his future fights.

“I think everybody already had enough of Herb Dean,” he said. “We don’t know if he should even continue on the job at this point. He got comfortable, and he just keeps getting every so often, there’s more and more stuff happening the same way with him… 100 percent (he won’t referee my fights again).”

While Pereira’s management told the outlet that they are “looking at all grounds for an appeal,” his legal team, it seems, is determined to take the matter to its legal conclusion. However, it might not be the first time Herb Dean has found himself in the centre of a controversy, though the outcome has never been a lawsuit before.

Just earlier this year, the veteran referee faced scrutiny following the stoppage in the UFC 325 bout between Benoit Saint Denis and Dan Hooker, which prompted Jorge Masvidal to label him “the worst referee.” More recently, Dean received heavy criticism over the MVP MMA 1 bout between Adriano Moraes and Phumi Nkuta.

However, after the controversy over the Pereira-Gane bout, Herb Dean shared an instructional video online to defend himself, breaking down the specific Unified Rules of MMA for legal and illegal zones on the skull. He argued that an illegal strike to the back of the head is any shot that lands in a two-inch area near the crown or anywhere on the back of the neck, while shots to the ear are totally legal in MMA.

Looking at the fight, the first exchange was rough, but the punches were still within the rules. However, the bigger issue came after ‘Bon Gamin’ tripped Alex Pereira in the second round. After Ciryl Gane landed a perfectly legal, heavy right jab that dropped Pereira, during the resulting scramble, slow-motion clips shared by fans and MMA analysts show that as Pereira turned his body downward to protect himself, six of the eleven punches thrown in only a few seconds seemed to land illegally on the back of Alex Pereira’s head.

According to Alex Pereira, Ciryl Gane has a habit of getting too desperate when things get rough.

“Just for the record, Ciryl has a history of doing these kind of things,” he said. “But we’re not saying he’s doing it because he’s a bad person or anything like that. Maybe it’s just his instincts when he’s in trouble.

“He gets desperate and starts doing stuff like that. But the ref is there to protect me and Ciryl. Knowing he had this kind of behaviour, I did address this to the referee the day before when we had a rules meeting. This was addressed to take action.”

While Alex Pereira’s plan to sue a referee is unprecedented, his frustration with Ciryl Gane’s cage tactics isn’t exactly coming out of nowhere.

Ciryl Gane’s growing history of controversial fouls strengthens Alex Pereira’s case

With this latest White House incident, the newly crowned interim heavyweight champion has amassed a very lengthy list of borderline inside-the-cage infractions. Just eight months ago at UFC 321, Ciryl Gane found himself in a major controversy when he accidentally poked Tom Aspinall in both eyes. The foul resulted in a disheartening no contest, with the Englishman requiring surgery to repair the damage.

The pattern repeats itself as you go back a little further. The illegal strikes to the back of Junior dos Santos’ head during their late 2020 bout prompted Santos and his team to file an appeal with the NSAC to overturn the Gane win. However, it went nowhere. During his 2021 battle with Jairzinho Rozenstruik, “Bigi Boy” spent a significant amount of time furiously signalling to referee Herb Dean over the Frenchman’s repeated eye pokes and low blows.

That same year, Gane’s extremely competitive striking match against Alexander Volkov at UFC Vegas 30 was temporarily stopped in the fifth round due to another stray finger to the eye—a fight that was also officiated by Herb Dean.

Even Ciryl Gane’s major, high-stakes fight against Jon Jones in 2023 wasn’t clean. Just seven seconds into the first round of the championship fight, ‘Bon Gamin’ halted Jones’ momentum with a vicious, early low kick to the groin.

But if you ask Alex Pereira, he doesn’t believe the Frenchman is a bad person, but these fouls are just an instinctual panic reaction when the Frenchman gets into deep water. Despite a trail of eye pokes, low blows, and back-of-the-head strikes left in Gane’s wake, ‘Poatan’ is ready to let the lawyers decide who pays the bill. Till then, he is also asking the UFC to take some serious action.