Alex Pereira goes off on referees; Says someone must be held accountable after Gane’s KO

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Alex Pereira has broken his silence after his attempt to win a third world title ended in defeat.

The former two-weight champion made the move up to heavyweight, hoping to add another belt to his collection. But Ciryl Gane proved too big and too strong, stopping him in the second round.

Pereira’s bout was one of two title fights at UFC Freedom 250, held on the White House lawn. And the finish hasn’t come without controversy, with Gane landing several punches that looked like they were behind the head.

Alex Pereira took a couple of days to reflect before posting a video to his YouTube channel, where he addressed his defeat at the UFC Freedom 250 event. Despite the loss, Pereira maintained that he was content with how things played out overall.

Alex Pereira speaks out after UFC Freedom 250 loss

In the video, Pereira revealed that he had spoken with referee Herb Dean before the fight, raising concerns about Ciryl Gane’s tendency for illegal strikes. He feels that those warnings weren’t taken seriously enough and believes there should be consequences.

“If you watch the footage, man, multiple shots there, multiple elbows,” Pereira explained in Portuguese. “Okay, sure, the jab? [Thumbs up] okay. But given everything that happened, I was getting up and it became difficult to recover.

“But I believe that if it wasn’t for those shots, I’d be in that situation and could have possibly recovered. Maybe not, they were very hard shots, illegal shots, but it is what it is. It’s very difficult to prepare, to dedicate yourself, to get there.

“There’s a guy whose only job is to do that. I told him beforehand that I think it’s hard to put myself in the referee’s shoes. My opponent is there, he starts striking, and the ref sees 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 ask ‘why did you stop it?’ Say ‘look at the video’. In that scenario people would give him credit as a man.

Pereira didn’t hold back on his thoughts about Dean’s performance either: “But now, he is not a man. He shouldn’t have been refereeing that fight to be honest.” The Brazilian continued: “A guy like that should be punished.”

“That’s how it is,” concluded Pereira. “It’s a very serious job; it’s a very serious event.”