Herb Pope’s Subpar Headbutting Skills Finally Pay Off

While replays after the skirmish clearly showed that Pope headbutted Carter - an act most would deem worthy of an ejection - both players were merely issued a single technical foul and the game continued.

So why didn’t Pope get the boot? Well according to everyone’s favorite referee Jim Burr, who was the lead official for the game, it’s partially because Pope isn’t very good at headbutting.

Here’s Burr’s full statement:

“There were two contact technicals, neither one of them were flagrant. They are personal fouls and they are team fouls. They are offsetting, I didn’t see anything that was any worse than the other. One kid pushed the (other) kid in the chest and one kid headbutted the (other) guy. It wasn’t a great headbutt, it was just a little tap so they’re offsetting, unsporting-like technical fouls and they offset each other. We had another one on (No.) 2 white that we called for pushing. We shot the personals, we shot the technicals, contact technical, the offending team (sic) gets the ball out of bounds, that’s the rule. We did everything by the rule.”

Jim Burr could do great things in MMA.