Roy Nelson Doesn’t Regret Kicking Referee After Knockout Win
Heavyweight slugger Roy “Big Country” Nelson added another vicious knockout victory to his record at last night’s (September 25, 2016) UFC Fight Night 95, drilling Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva with a brutal right hand in the second round. Nelson was forced to follow up with a few extra blows, however, and it was clear that he wasn’t pleased with the stoppage, as he actually threw a kick towards referee John McCarthy:
“It was a push,” Nelson said of the kick at the UFC Fight Night 95 post-fight press conference. “It was more of like, dude, come on.
“Then we had a conversation in the cage. I was like, ‘Dude, he was knocked out.’ And [McCarthy] was like, ‘No, he wasn’t.’ And I’m like, dude, I know what a knockout is. I knock people out. That’s what I do for a living. I know what a knockout is. Just because the guy didn’t roll his eyes into the back of his head, or shake, or whatever … it was just one of those things.”
“Big Country” admits that he got caught up in the heat of the moment, but he doesn’t regret his actions. Nelson simply said that “Bigfoot” didn’t need to take any more damage:
“I didn’t want to hurt ‘Bigfoot’ more than I had to,” Nelson said. “And I got taken by the moment, because it’s like I’m beating the sh*t out of somebody and you’re like, dude, enough is enough. And for me, it hurt my feelings. And I apologize to Big John, but I wouldn’t take it back. It just hurt me, that I’ve got to keep on hitting a guy that doesn’t need to be hit.”
“I knew I already knocked him out with my first punch, and then I got him one more time,” Nelson said. “In my head, it was like slow-mo, like I’m having a conversation with John going, ‘hey man, how is the weather over there?’ That’s what it felt like. I’m friends with ‘Bigfoot,’ and he has a family. I don’t need to keep on punching him in his face. And it’s not one of those (things) like, if I hit him so hard that he fell flat on his face, I would’ve just walked off like Mark Hunt. But he fell on his back.”
“It wasn’t like [McCarthy] was so far away. He was over here to my side, and I know I had a conversation (with him). I’m like, he’s out. He’s like, ‘no he’s not, keep on moving.’ So for me, I feel like I’m giving ‘Bigfoot’ extra damage, where he doesn’t actually need to get hit that much.”
What do you make of Nelson’s reaction to the stoppage?
