Dominick Cruz believes referee overreacted at UFC 323
Dominick Cruz is doubling down on his comment that the UFC 323 co-main event could possibly have continued.
The penultimate bout of the last UFC pay-per-view of 2025 saw Joshua Van win the flyweight title in shocking fashion when defending champion Alexandre Pantoja suffered a freak arm injury. Immediately after, Cruz took to Twitter to question whether referee Herb Dean stopped the fight too early.
“I wish that Van vs. Pantoja fight was aloud [sic] to keep going,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “It should be up to us as the fighter if we want to continue after that. We put the time in the training camp in that situation. People dislocate their arms and put it back in place and keep fighting all the time.”
Cruz’s response was met with widespread criticism and confusion, as it appeared Pantoja immediately acknowledged his injury and offered little complaint regarding the stoppage. The extent of Pantoja’s arm injury is still unknown, though his team is targeting an immediate rematch with Van when possible.
On his Love & War podcast, Cruz defended his post-fight comment.
“I think the reason why this tweet got picked up is because it sounds kind of crazy, probably,” Cruz said. “But as a fighter myself, I watched that fight and saw somebody who was shaking his head when it got stopped. It’s like he looked up at the ref, right here you’ll see he falls, boom, he’s shaking his head, like, ‘No.’ … and he’s like, ‘I’m alright, I’m alright’. You see him saying that?
“I’m not saying he is OK, by the way. He might be completely messed up. Right now, for all I know, he could be saying, ‘Yeah, freak accident. Shouldn’t have happened. He could just be disappointed that it’s over, that it got stopped, but the way I see it is like, ‘I’m alright. I’m alright.’”
Cruz went on to describe other instances where fighters were injured, but were able to manage the injury enough to recover and win the fight or at least go the distance.
“I’ve had my shoulder dislocated in the middle of practice,” Cruz said. “The second you get it back into place, the pain goes down, you can tough it out. I’ve watched Brendan Loughnane break his ulna from a spinning backfist in the second round, go on to win the fight and get millions of dollars because they allowed that fight to go on. I’ve watched [Raoni] Barcelos put his shoulder back in in the middle of a fight, go on to win the fight, and keep his win streak going.
“I’ve watched Urijah Faber break not one, but two hands in a fight against Jens Pulver and go on to win the fight. I think the difference between the injuries and Pantoja’s injury is when he landed, the referee could see the damage. And before Pantoja could make the decision of, hey, I’m going to lock it back in and try to see if it works and get back to my feet, they called the fight. So the ref made the decision for him that his shoulder, his elbow was compromised, so the fight must stop.
“My only thing about this tweet is he should have the choice. Like, give him a second. Maybe Joshua Van starts pounding his face into the ground and he’s just holding his elbow getting beat to death. OK, fight’s over. But he didn’t even get the chance to try to fight, try to tough it out, try to get it back together. The ref just called the fight. Then I just see a Pantoja who put in a miserable training camp shaking his head going, ‘All that work for a 38-second fight’ when I don’t know, I wonder—I mean, I would love to have him on and ask him, ‘Would you have liked to keep that fight going?’”
Cruz is no stranger to criticizing stoppages. At UFC 249 in 2020, Cruz famously called out referee Keith Peterson for stopping his bantamweight championship fight with Henry Cejudo after Cejudo rocked him near the end of the second round. It’s a grudge Cruz continues to hold to this day.
Perhaps it should be unsurprising that he puts the onus of the UFC 323 co-main event ending on Dean.
“Let’s say the referee doesn’t stop it because he doesn’t freak out by what he just saw,” Cruz said. “Which, I think that’s what it is, the referee freaked out, stopped the fight before he even got a chance to call it himself as the fighter who put in the camp. But let’s say Pantoja, boom, snaps it back in. The ref doesn’t even see the injury and he’s just laying down there and he’s able to keep it together until he gets his arm back in and then he gets to his feet and then he finishes the fight, goes the whole distance, or even wins it. What are the stories we’re telling about Pantoja?
“What are the things that everybody in the world can learn about themselves from somebody making it through something that miserable? These are opportunities of greatness that have been taken away to an extent, is the way I see it, by the ref who’s scared to death about the injury.”
Category: General Sports
