Herb Dean Steps Up at UFC Vegas 123, Docks Zachary Reese a Point for Eye Poke

Herb Dean Penalizes Zachary Reese Early Against Mickey Gall

In the first round, just when it looked like Reese was finding his range with kicks to Gall’s midsection, the New Jersey native closed the gap and came forward with a right hand, only to get poked in the eye by his opponent.

Herb Dean was quick to pause the action. Despite it being Reese's first foul of the night, the referee deducted a point on the spot. With that decision, the opening round ended in a 9-9 on all three scorecards, as Gall answered with uppercuts and a left hook once the fight resumed.

In the following round, “Savage” made up for the lost point. He hurt Gall with a knee to the body, followed up with an elbow, and forced the action toward the fence. Despite Galls's attempts to use his boxing, Reese kept pace in the exchanges and later landed a flying knee and a front kick. During the same round, one of his strikes landed low. However, the referee did not impose a penalty and let the bout continue.

In the final stanza, Reese stomped on Gall’s lead leg and switched stances to keep him guessing. The returning Gall, who was fighting for the first time in nearly two years, landed a stout right hand and finished strong with body kicks, hooks to the head, and a straight left.

The judges scored the bout 29-27, 29-27, and 29-27, with Zachary Reese defeating Mickey Gall by unanimous decision.

Herb Dean Backs Up His Promise After a Year of Scrutiny

Dean’s call did not come out of the blue. After Ciryl Gane poked Tom Aspinall in both eyes at UFC 321 last October, the veteran referee appeared on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast and said that the officials had not been enforcing the rule against extending the fingers toward an opponent’s eyes. He said:

“So we made a rule, it’s a foul to extend the fingers towards the eyes. That’s the rule we’ve already had in place. So that rule has been there, but we haven’t been enforcing it. So we’re going to move forward on that.”“But this right here is a dangerous foul, and somebody’s going to keep doing a dangerous action. We should start taking points by them doing that action before it actually happens to hurt somebody.”

However, the UFC referee struggled to stick to that promise in 2026. At UFC Freedom 250 in June, Alex Pereira slammed him for letting Gane land what “Poatan” believed were illegal strikes to the back of his head.

Later that month at UFC Baku, Dean only warned Shara Magomedov for a hair pull and an eye poke against Michel Pereira in a bout that could have ended in a draw had he taken a point.

Most recently, his stoppage of King Green’s loss to Esteban Ribovics at UFC 332 drew more backlash. Hence, the no-nonsense call against Reese marked a clear change from the referee fans had grown used to.