MMA referee Herb Dean recently shed light on why referees will sometimes stand fighters up, even when one appears to be in a dominant ground position.
Speaking on the topic in the aftermath of UFC 319, where Marc Goddard stood Khamzat Chimaev and Dricus du Plessis up multiple times, Dean explained that the decision comes down to ensuring the fight is progressing:
I can tell you what I tell the fighters during the rules briefing.
I tell them: “Anytime I’m gonna interfere, I’m going to talk to you first.”If I’m going to stand up, what I’m going to say first is: “Let’s work.”
I usually clap. That means – and what I’m expecting from you is not busy work.
I specify: I’m looking for effort to finish the fight.
He continued to explain the reasoning:
So, you’re either to posture to where you can throw, potentially set up fight-ending attacks, or advance your position.
Effort to advance – it’s not as easy as just passing the guard – but effort to pass, effort to advance your position, effort to bring the fight to a finish.’
Dean emphasized that the rule exists to keep MMA looking like a fight rather than a prolonged stalemate on the mat:
The rule was put in – standing up the fighters – to make our sport look the way we want it to look.
And I mean, there’s a lot of smart guys, especially on our commentary team.
They have opinions on it and I’m always interested in talking to those guys, because they think about this sport a lot, and I’m sure they could give me some viewpoints I’ve never thought about.
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