UFC heavyweight, Roy "Big Country" Nelson, kicked referee John McCarthy after his spectacular win at UFC Fight Night 95 in Brazil. The long-time contender says he did it after McCarthy took too long to stop the fight.
UFC Fight Night 95 was filled with plenty of amazing highlights, from Cris Cyborg's dominating TKO victory in her UFC debut, to Eric Spicely's masterful rear naked choke. But one thing that happened that night, which arguably stole the show, was when Roy Nelson kicked referee Big John McCarthy on the rear, as the latter was attending to Bigfoot Silva, who was knocked out cold on the ground.
Nelson and Silva's match was the fourth of the night, and started off quite slow, given the two behemoths who were facing off against each other. The first round was rather uneventful, with Nelson swinging and missing with his heavy right hand, and Bigfoot getting off a few sharp leg kicks, but in the second round, Nelson landed with a heavy overhand right that sent Bigfoot to the floor. As Bigfoot hit the canvas, Nelson was looking at McCarthy to stop the fight, but the veteran referee told him to keep going, as he saw that Bigfoot was still somewhat defending himself.
McCarthy eventually called the stoppage but only after Nelson landed more heavy shots from the top. Afterwards, Nelson proceeded to push McCarthy with a kick, then flipped him off as he went back to his corner. In the post fight interview, Nelson says that he didn't want to hurt Bigfoot any more than he should have, and was frustrated with McCarthy for not stopping the fight sooner, which affected him to kicking the official, according to a report from Yahoo! Sports.
Nelson says that while apologizes for the unnecessary kick, he doesn't take back what he did, according to Bloody Elbow. He continued to say in the post fight interview that his feelings were hurt by McCarthy for not stopping the fight, because he already knocked Bigfoot out and didn't want to add more damage to a guy who already has his share of head trauma.
