The referee and judges that will be officiating the highly anticipated showdown between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor at UFC 229 have been determined.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission approved the assignments on Tuesday at a meeting held in Las Vegas.
Veteran referee Herb Dean will the third man in the Octagon when Nurmagomedov attempts to defend his UFC lightweight title against McGregor in the main event.
Dean has served as referee in some of the biggest fights in UFC history including past bouts involving McGregor so it’s not much of a surprise that he got the assignment for this particular matchup.
Herb Dean
Meanwhile, the judges overseeing the contest will be Derek Cleary, Sal D’Amato and Junichiro Kamijo.
McGregor has only gone to decision in two of his previous UFC fights, but Cleary did serve as a judge for one of those contests. Cleary was sitting cage side for McGregor’s majority decision win over Nate Diaz in 2016. On that night, Cleary scored the fight for McGregor 48-47 after five rounds.
It’s a veteran crew that will be handling what is expected to be the biggest pay-per-view card in UFC history.
UFC president Dana White has stated that the event is trending towards 2.5 million pay-per-view buys, which would shatter the previous record held by McGregor and Diaz for their fight at UFC 202 in 2016.
McGregor and Nurmagomedov squared off for the first time last week at a press conference to promote the card and both fighters will reconvene in Las Vegas next week as UFC 229 draws near on Oct. 6.
