Herb Dean has denied fellow UFC Keith Peterson smelt like cigarettes and alcohol at UFC 249.
Dominick Cruz made the serious accusations after Peterson controversially stepped in two stop his UFC bantamweight title fight with Henry Cejudo at the very end of the second round.
He deemed that Cruz was not intelligently defending himself from a barrage of punches by Cejudo.
Cruz had said, "the guy smelled like alcohol and cigarettes, so who knows what he was doing" but Dean, who the former champion had actually praised as the best ref in the business, completely refuted the claims.
He told The Schmo: "As far as the accusation, I didn't smell alcohol on Keith Peterson.
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"Keith Peterson was around us all day, and I'll tell you this; if any of us suspect that someone's been drinking the day of a fight, there's no way that any official's going to let that pass.
"We are going to call someone out, this is a very serious job we do."
Cruz's wild rant came post-fight on ESPN and Dean believes it's just a case of a fighter saying something in the heat of the moment.
"I excuse really anything fighters say or do in the moment of a loss because people want to compete so bad," he added, as per MMA Fighting.
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"And to compete at this level it takes more than anyone knows. I've had a fighter angry with me, or push me in the moment and I will walk away. And then when I see them later on and everything is alright."
Topics:ย UFC News, Henry Cejudo, UFC, MMA
