UFC featherweight Vinicius Oliveira fired back at Andre Fili after their recent fight, suggesting that referee Herb Dean “saved” his life”
Oliveira and Fili won $100,000 each for Fight of the Night this past weekend at UFC Vegas 119. It was an awesome fight between two talented featherweights, one that saw Fili take the first round with more effective striking, including a vicious body kick that nearly stopped Oliveira, before “Lok Dok” came back in the second round and finished “Touchy” with strikes.
However, the finishing sequence was controversial, as some of the strikes that Oliveira hit Fili with appeared to be to the back of the head. This came just one week after Alex Pereira lost to Ciryl Gane at UFC Freedom 250 in another fight where illegal back-of-the-head shots were a big talking point. Sure enough, Dean was the ref in both fights, and Fili made it clear he was not happy with the ref’s performance after the fight.
Oliveira, however, believes that Fili needs to be quiet because he thinks Dean saved Fili from an even worse beating that he would have put on him.
Taking to his social media in the days following their war at UFC Vegas 119, Oliveira told his rival to “stop whining” because he felt like Dean saved Fili from taking further damage.
“Yo @TouchyFili , The fight is over buddy. Stop whining about that illegal elbow strike. @HerbDeanMMA saved your life by stopping the fight, you were already curled up in a fetal position, u should thank me for landing a legal elbow strike, which is what caused you to go down,” Oliveira said.
Yo @TouchyFili , The fight is over buddy. Stop whining about that illegal elbow strike. @HerbDeanMMA saved your life by stopping the fight, you were already curled up in a fetal position, u should thank me for landing a legal elbow strike, which is what caused you to go down.
Fili, of course, has made it known that he was upset with Dean not warning Fili for the illegal shots, suggesting that he would have won the fight if he had been allowed to recover from them.
“Lots of arguing in the comments. Lots of people hitting me up about the shots last night to the back of the head. I’m very frustrated because it was an illegal shot that started the end of the fight for me. Everything else before that was covering up, I was intelligently defending myself, I was firing back, I was weathering the storm, and I knew he’d be exhausted after that. I’m not especially happy that Herb let those go. I’m not especially happy that he let two or three of them go,” Fili said.
Regardless of the legality of the strikes, the win over Fili was a big one for Oliveira, who was making his UFC featherweight debut after struggling to cut down to the bantamweight limit in his previous fight against Mario Bautista.
Against Fili, Oliveira looked more durable, and his cardio looked superior, too, as he won in the second round by TKO.
Fili wasn’t ranked, so Oliveira isn’t in the top 15 yet. But he may very well get a top-15-ranked opponent after finishing Fili by strikes and winning a FOTN bonus.
Adam Martin Adam Martin is a sports journalist with over 15 years of experience. He has a speciality in MMA, while also covering the Big 4 Sports. Adam is currently a contributor to Heavy.com, with previous experience working for The Toronto Star, Sportsnet, theScore, Bookies, BJPenn.com, and MMAOddsbreaker.com. More about Adam Martin
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