Joe Lauzon recalls how he beat Herb Dean to the punch and stopped his own fight

CHICAGO – Call it an act of sportsmanship. Or just being in the moment. Either way, Joe Lauzon may have had a very brief panicked moment on Saturday night.

With full back mount on a fighter he was looking up to and studying before he got into the sport, Lauzon (25-10 MMA, 12-7 UFC) pounded away on Takanori Gomi (35-11 MMA, 4-6 UFC) until he thought he was done.

Then Lauzon got up and walked away, secure in his victory. There was just one small problem: Referee Herb Dean hadn’t stopped the fight.

“I think I kind of jumped the gun a little bit,” Lauzon said after his win over Gomi to open the main card of UFC on FOX 16 at United Center in Chicago. “I hit him good a couple times. When I had his back, I spread him out and I think I tore something in his groin or something. He was fighting pretty hard, and then he let out like a squeal. And then he completely went flat. I felt like I had taken the life out of him. I hit him a couple times, and I thought he was unconscious. He looked out.”

And so Lauzon stood up and began to celebrate. When Dean looked in on Gomi, he got the answer he was expecting, and the one that Lauzon apparently foretold – Gomi was pretty much toast.

Of course, had Dean determined Gomi was OK to keep going, it would’ve make for an awkward situation for Lauzon.

“Herb Dean was right there,” Lauzon said. “I figured if he’s unconscious, I figured I’d just beat him to putting his hands on me and I walked away. He looked at him and was checking him out, and I was like, ‘He’s not going to stop this.’ So then I started to run over. But before I got there, he waved me off.

Lauzon fell short of adding to his record-setting UFC bonus total despite the stoppage. He was the heaviest favorite on Saturday’s card, which saw eight total fights broadcast on FOX following four prelims on UFC Fight Pass.

But perhaps more important than his win over a man he considered idol, Lauzon got back in the win column after a loss to Al Iaquinta.

For complete coverage of UFC on FOX 16, check out the UFC Events section of the site.