Dominick Cruz Doubles Down on Harsh Accusations Directed Toward Referee Keith Peterson

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Dominick Cruz raised some eyebrows with the damning accusations he fired at referee Keith Peterson following the UFC 249 co-main event.

In his first fight in nearly four years, Cruz succumbed to a Henry Cejudo knee and follow-up punches 4:58 into the second round of their bantamweight title clash at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. While Cejudo concluded the contest with approximately 10-12 unanswered punches on Cruz, it appeared as though the Alliance MMA representative might be on his way back to his feet.

“That was an early stoppage, 100 percent – I’m positive of it,” Cruz said Saturday on the UFC 249 post-fight show on ESPN. “I wish there was a way to keep these refs a little more responsible sometimes. The guy smelled like alcohol and cigarettes, so who knows what he was doing. Definitely. I wish they drug tested them. I know Herb Dean is good. He’s one of the best refs. I immediately when I saw that ref I was like, ‘Man, is there a way to veto a ref and get a new one?’ I wonder that.”

Cruz’s insinuation that Peterson was either intoxicated or hungover during the bout was the most serious statement made in the aftermath of the event. Given a couple days to clarify his comments, Cruz didn’t back down from that accusation during a recent interview with ESPN.

“Before I went out to that fight, I remember specifically looking at this referee, Keith Peterson, and he’s like mumbling, touching the floor, putting his fist down and putting his fingers about where not to knee and where to knee, and he won’t look me in the eyes. I’m going underneath to make sure he looks me in the eyes and I’m like, ‘Hey man, I can’t understand what you’re saying. Like, what are you talking about?’” Cruz said. “Be clear, because you are in control of this fight and I want to know what’s going on. I need you to make this work. I shook his hand and said, ‘I need you to let me go out. This is a title fight. I need you to not be stopping this early.’

“I looked him in the eyes and I said, ‘I need you for this,’ and I shook his hand. My experience of him was him smelling like he had been out all night the night before, like cigarettes and alcohol. And he could not make eye contact with me. I have never in 25 fights had a referee who could not make eye contact with me before a fight.”

Through 12 UFC and WEC bouts documented by Sherdog.com, Cruz had never been involved in a bout officiated by Peterson. While Cruz commended veteran official Herb Dean for his stoppage in the UFC 249 main event that followed, he felt that Peterson demonstrated poor awareness in the waning seconds of Round 2 as Cejudo was pushing for the finish.

“First, I’ll move into responsibility and say I should not have put the referee in that position to make that decision,” Cruz said. “We’re in the last 20 seconds of the [round]. He says, ‘It’s not my job to know the clock.’ Yes, it is your job to know the clock. You have one job, it’s to keep us safe and know the time…With 20 seconds left in a round that is a time when fighters sprint. You’ve got throw Hail Marys, that’s the go for it time in a football game. Same thing in a five-minute sprint. At the end of a five-minute sprint, you need to sprint. Who wants it more? Henry did his job. He sprinted at the end of the bell. But I wasn’t out. You can see it on tape.

“The second I saw this referee couldn’t look me in the eyes, I said, ‘I wish I had Herb Dean,’” Cruz added. “That’s the ref I want. You see how he officiated the title match after, and I agree with everything he did. I think he officiated amazingly.”

In the future, Cruz would like to have input regarding the referee if he is involved in another championship bout.

“I want to hold the referees accountable too. If you’re in there, you should be in just as clear of a state as the fighter,” he said. “You should be able to look the fighter in the eye and face every question that they have. We should be able to negotiate that at least for a title fight. That was a weak link I believe in my fight between me and Henry.”

Cruz says he has heard similar accounts from other fighters regarding Peterson’s behavior outside of the Octagon, including one from Alliance MMA Training partner Jeremy Stephens.

“I’ve never had a ref that I felt so shaky about leading into the fight, that couldn’t make eye contact, that smelled the way he smelled,” Cruz said. “Jeremy Stephens told me that he had to carry that dude [Peterson] back up to his room before. This is real stuff that we’re talking about. The fights are going on and these guys are getting hammered the night before and they’re not clear and they’re coming in hung over. You’re a weak link in my three-year preparation for this, and I don’t appreciate that.”

Cruz has not spoken to Peterson since the bout.

“Did you see how quickly that dude ran out of the Octagon when I told him that he dropped the ball? He was gone,” Cruz said. “He couldn’t even face me. He knows.”