Should referee Herb Dean have stopped the Rockhold-Weidman fight sooner?

The message, written in gold marker over the image of Rockhold, read “I, Chris Weidman will defeat Luke Rockhold on December 12th and retain my title of still being the UFC MW champion of the World!” Anderson Silva had some interesting match ups throughout his career, but none of them were between two well-rounded studs who are as tested, as exciting, and as risky as Weidman and Rockhold are. Rockhold is a former middleweight in Strikeforce. Rockhold and Weidman jockey for position along the fence with both attempting takedowns. Weidman was able to get Rockhold’s back and Rockhold spun towards the cage.

The turning point came in the third when Weidman tried a wheel kick.

On the feet, Luke Rockhold perfectly displays his care-free personality with his relaxed striking style. Weidman scores with a knee and then gets a double along the fence. Weidman avoided it to get full guard and finish out the round. I expect there to be a few ground exchanges, but Weidman will respect the submission savviness of Rockhold, and instead maintain dominant control – posturing up to strike whenever feasible. While Rockhold may be the smoother striker with a deeper arsenal, Weidman’s forward pressure, long reach, and knockout power are ideal weapons against Rockhold’s hands down, head movement-based defense. Weidman through a big swing and missed and Rockhold came back with some punches of his own but didn’t land any. He landed kicks to the body and Rockhold was visibly tired. He is coming off a second-round choke of Lyoto Machida back in April.

Rockhold got mount and delivered vicious ground-and-pound. The fight was neck-and-neck until that point but when Weidman threw the spinning kick…well, it was basically all over. Rockhold ends up on top.

Rockhold v Weidman remained firmly in the shadows of the mammoth McGregor v Aldo main event but, just like Lawler v MacDonald at UFC 189, the co-main event surpassed all expectations. Referee Herb Dean was close to stopping the bout right there, but he didn’t. Weidman bled from a cut over his left eye. Good right to the body by Rockhold now finds the mark.

The Sacramento native defeated Saenz, 35, by unanimous decision in the UFC 194 preliminaries. Rockhold finally got the take down. Rockhold continued to batter Weidman from the top, Weidman just trying to fight off Rockhold. Dean stepped in and stopped the fight.

Rockhold trains with light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez at AKA in San Jose, California.