Referee Herb Dean had to pry Mukhamad Vakhaev off the neck of Sergey Belostenniy after calling a stop to their heavyweight title fight in main event of ACB 90 on Saturday in Moscow, Russia.
Vakhaev came from behind to claim the first-round rear-naked choke victory after spending the guts of the fight on the end of body shots from the challenger.
In the moments after the stoppage, Dean continued to reprimand the champion as he told him “Do not do that again.”
The win marked Vakhaev’s fifth in a row. It was also the first defense of his heavyweight title, which he won in the division’s tournament final last year against Denis Goltsov.