Roy Nelson Explains Post-Fight Ref Kick – Says Fight Should Have Been Stopped Sooner

Roy Nelson spoke last night (via MMAjunkie) about his kick to referee John McCarthy following his win over Antonio Silva at UFC Fight Night 95. Some highlights are below:

On McCarthy taking too long to stop the fight: “It’s like a cop beating the (expletive) out of somebody. It’s like, dude, enough’s enough. It hurt my feelings.”

On his kick to McCarthy after the fight: “I apologized to ‘Big’ John, but I wouldn’t take it back. It just hurt me that I had to keep on hitting a guy that didn’t need to be hit.”

On McCarthy’s assertion that Silva wasn’t knocked out by his uppercut: “Dude, I know what a knockout is. I knock people out for a living. That’s what I do. Just because the guy doesn’t roll his eyes in the back of his head – it was just one of those things. I didn’t want to hurt ‘Bigfoot’ more than I had to.”

On his differences of opinion with McCarthy: “Me and John were talking about damages, different positions, and he was saying, ‘Knee-on-belly is just a position,’” Nelson said. “I go, ‘Well, knee-on-belly could be a submission, if you know what you’re doing. Maybe you should get down on the ground let me put my knee on your belly and see if you submit. And he was like, ‘No, no.’ I was just making sure that he was going to be the third guy to make sure I don’t get eye-poked, someone doesn’t grab the fence, someone doesn’t hit me in my balls, and make sure the other guy is safe if the guy gets knocked out…When I hit ‘Bigfoot,’ I already knew I knocked him out with the first punch. And then I got him with another punch. In my head, it was like, so slow-mo, like I’m having a conversation with John in my head going, ‘Hey, how’s the weather?’ That’s what it felt like. I’m friends with ‘Bigfoot.’ I don’t need to keep on punching him in his face. And it’s not like where I hit him so hard that he fell flat on his face; I would have walked off like a Mark Hunt. But he fell on his back. It wasn’t like (McCarthy) was so far away. He was at my side. I know I had a conversation. I’m like, ‘He’s out.’ And he’s like, ‘No he’s not. Keep on moving.’ So for me, I feel like I gave ‘Bigfoot’ extra damage where he didn’t actually need to get hit that much.”