Drew Dober always wants the chance to fight to the finish, so he definitely had no problem with how referee Mike Beltran handled his loss at UFC Mexico this past Saturday.
The final sequence in the co-main event saw Dober get tagged by a punch from Manuel Torres before dropping to the ground where Dober immediately latched onto a leg to attempt a takedown while he recovered. Torres followed up with a barrage of hammer fists to the side of the head before Beltran finally ended the fight at 1:45 in the opening round.
A split second after the stoppage, Dober was up again and still trying to continue. While the majority of the criticism about the end of the fight came back on Beltran for allowing Dober to absorb way too much damage, there was also some confusion about the timing because the 36-year-old veteran returned to his feet so quickly.
“I never went back and forth. It was a good stoppage,” Dober told MMA Fighting about the fight. “That first or second hammer fist was the one that kind of put me in another dimension. But my body’s just willing to fight I guess. My body is just ready to go. So it’s like the lights were on but nobody was home.
“The reason I was hanging onto his leg is because I was no longer there. It was a good stoppage. My willingness to fight just transcends my mind.”
Since the fight ended, Dober has gone back to watch his performance several times and he can actually pinpoint exactly when he was done, although with his head down on the mat it was tougher to tell in the heat of the moment.
“If you watch, technically when you want to finish the takedown, you want your grip above your opponent’s knee,” Dober explained. “I was shooting for a takedown and after the first or second hammer fist, you see my grip just drop below his knee to like a low single. I don’t ever do that takedown so that was not a productive movement.
“So if you want to rewatch that film, the moment my grip goes below his knee, that was when the fight should have been stopped.”
Considering Dober ate several more hammer fists in succession after he was already done, does he hold any ill will towards Beltran for a late stoppage?
“For my health, I think it could have been stopped earlier but I don’t cast blame on the referee because he’s trying to do his job,” Dober said. “He told me in the locker room that he knows the way I fight. He knows the damage I can take. He’s going to give me every opportunity to improve my position.
“Really the person to blame for the later stoppage is the fact that my body just kept fighting regardless of my mind being absent. I don’t cast any blame. Everyone was doing their job, even Manuel Torres. Unfortunately, it just it what it is.”
Manuel Torres stops Drew Dober in Round 1 at #UFCMexico! pic.twitter.com/DUUIEHO7Hu
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) March 30, 2025
While the safety of the fighters is paramount when it comes to a referee’s decision to stop a fight or allowing the action to continue, Dober admits he prefers officials give him every possible opportunity to survive.
There was no coming back with what happened at UFC Mexico, but Dober appreciates that his durability usually gives him the chance to weather the storm and then return fire on his opponents.
“I chose an unfortunate career for my health,” Dober said. “It’s just kind of like we’re not going to have perfect careers in MMA. We’re going to take a punch and we’ve got to recover from it. I think refs should lean more on take a step back and let the pros do their work.”
Much of the conversation after the fight centered around the stoppage. For Dober, he still has to lament the fact that he suffered a third straight loss in the UFC.
What perhaps stings even more is that Dober didn’t get to show off all the hard work he did preparing for the fight because his night was over inside two minutes.
“I hate the fact that I only gave like a minute and 30 seconds of a fight but I wanted to see where did I go wrong,” Dober said. “I watched the fight multiple times and truthfully, I was doing everything I needed to do. I worked on my improvements, my game plan, my motion, my feints, I was working him up against the fence, I was taking chances, everything was in a position for it to be one hell of a fight and the other aspect is there’s a little bit of luck involved. He committed to the 1-2 off that fence and he found the mark on it. Completely coherent on the knockdown. We’re all fighters. We get punched in the mouth. There’s no such thing as a perfect fight.
“I fell on my butt, I shot for that takedown to kind of get that fight going and it was that first or second hammer fist that landed on the side of my head that kind of put it away. What I got from it, I still have it, I’m still talented, I’m eager for the next one but Manuel Torres, he nailed the bullseye.”
Back home and resting, Dober always takes his long-term health seriously so he’s not going to rush back into the fray again without ensuring that he’s 100 percent ready to go.
Dober revealed plans to meet with doctors this week to get checked out because even though he feels perfectly fine, he’s not taking any chances when it comes to his brain and the damage done from a knockout. Ideally, Dober hopes to fight again somewhere around August or September pending the all clear from his physicians.
“I’m not going to be a Dagestan wrestler. I know when I fight, I’m going to get punched in the head,” Dober said. “It’s just kind of like what happens in my fighting style. So I need to make sure that my head is quality and able to take the punishment. So I will take time off. I’m about to see a neurologist on Friday about the status of my head. I’m wearing these blue-light glasses. I just got done doing a hyperbaric chamber. I’m doing everything I possibly can to make sure that my brain heals correctly and properly before I get back in the frame.
“As far as my health goes, I feel fine. We’re just going to try to make sure that we don’t do anymore additional damage in training.”
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