Roy Nelson sorry, but not sorry, for kicking 'Big' John McCarthy at UFC Fight Night 95

BRASILIA, Brazil – Heavyweight Roy Nelson said it “hurt” him to finish Antonio Silva at UFC Fight Night 95, and that’s why he doesn’t regret kicking “Big” John McCarthy after his stoppage win.

Nelson planted a foot on McCarthy’s behind after the veteran referee waved off the bout and then gave him the finger, lending a controversial end to an otherwise emphatic victory.

“It’s like a cop beating the (expletive) out of somebody,” Nelson said after his second-round TKO on the FS1-televised main card of UFC Fight Night 95 on Saturday at Nilson Nelson Gymnasium in Brasilia, Brazil. “It’s like, dude, enough’s enough. It hurt my feelings.”

McCarthy, a retired police officer and longtime police trainer, would probably dispute that characterization of his work. But Nelson is unrepentant, because he was upset over the amount of damage “Bigfoot” Silva took.

“I apologized to ‘Big’ John, but I wouldn’t take it back,” Nelson said. “It just hurt me that I had to keep on hitting a guy that didn’t need to be hit.”

Nelson wouldn’t admit he’d actually kicked McCarthy, as a video of the incident clearly shows. He called the contact “a push.” But he admitted the two had words afterward in the octagon.

Nelson (22-13 MMA, 9-9 UFC), the No. 15 ranked fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA heavyweight rankings, said McCarthy claimed Silva (19-10-1 MMA, 3-7-1 UFC) wasn’t knocked out when he hit the canvas after a hard uppercut late in the second round.

“Dude, I know what a knockout is,” Nelson said. “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.”

McCarthy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from MMAjunkie. From a regulatory standpoint, however, it’s never a good idea to strike an official – in fact, it’s blatantly against the rules and can result in fines or suspensions.

In June 2014, Jason High was suspended by the New Mexico State Athletic Commission for shoving a referee, prompting the UFC to release him from his contract.

UFC Senior Vice President and General Manager of Brazil Giovani Decker deferred an official reaction to the event’s de-facto regulator, the Comissao Atletica Brasileira de MMA, or CABMMA.

“I think when they’re in the cage, they got a little hotheaded, and it’s up for the commission to judge them – not the UFC,” he told MMAjunkie.

From Nelson’s description of the events leading up to the kick, maybe the trouble didn’t come out of nowhere.

“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.”

The way Nelson sees it, McCarthy didn’t do his job in that respect.

“When I hit ‘Bigfoot,’ I already knew I knocked him out with the first punch,” he said. “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.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 95, check out the UFC Events section of the site.