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#1 Worst: The refereeing job in Dalby vs. Oliveira
I’ll preface this by saying that it was pretty cool to see hometown hero Nicolas Dalby return to the UFC with a big victory like this one. Dalby had been cut by the UFC back in 2016 after going 1-2-1 inside the Octagon, but he’d been able to put together a strong record since – 3-1 with one No Contest – to set up this return. Alex Oliveira looked like a tricky opponent, but by the time the third round began, the fight appeared to be tied; Oliveira taking the first, Dalby the second.
And it appeared that Oliveira was on the verge of winning the fight once he secured a takedown, got into side mount and began to work Dalby over with short elbows. In a strange move though, referee Rebin Saber – I’ve never heard of him before – decided to stand the fighters up. That allowed Dalby to turn the tide, get his own takedown and outwork Oliveira for the decision.
I’m not saying that Oliveira was downright robbed here – we just don’t know what would’ve happened in the round without the stand-up – but it was definitely a bad call and assuming Saber is a local referee, is another piece of evidence to suggest that the UFC should probably just arrange to stick to veteran refs – the likes of Marc Goddard and Herb Dean – in order to avoid gaffes like this.
