White: Nelson should be ‘buried’ for kicking ref

At UFC Fight Night 95, heavyweight Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson stopped Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva via strikes in the second round. However, instead of celebrating, he kicked referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy in the ass, walked off and gave him the finger.

Nelson’s frustration was admirable – the two are friends, and he felt that McCarthy waited too long to stop the fight. However, touching the ref is not admirable; it’s wrong in every single combat sport. Nelson later apologized, but “wouldn’t take it back.”

Unfortunately, UFC general manager of Brazil Giovani Decker is an athletic apparel guy, not a fight guy. He didn’t get it.

I think when they’re in the cage, they got a little hotheaded, said Decker to MMAjunkie. And it’s up for the commission to judge them – not the UFC.

MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz spoke to Cristiano Sampaio, director of Brazil’s regulating body, the Comissao Atletica Brasileira de MMA (CABMMA), who said the commission needed to hear from the referee. Sampaio later said that the incident will be taken up by Brazil’s Superior Justice Court of Sport, which handles judicial questions pertaining to sports in Brazil.

However, league president Dana White appeared recently on the UFC Unflitered podcast and was furious.

“You can’t apologize for that,” said White, as transcribed by Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. “You don’t ever, ever put your f***ing hands on a referee, or your feet, for any reason whatso f***ing ever. You don’t do it. He needs to be buried. He went over there and he put his foot on his ass to like push him over, you know what I mean? Was flipping him off, yelling whatever. You wanna flip a ref off, there is never, ever a situation where you put your f***ing hands on a referee. Ever. You can’t apologize for that.”

“I’ve been traveling since the fight so I haven’t seen what’s going on, but if the Brazilian athletic commission doesn’t reign on him, man, it’s not good. You don’t ever put your hands on a referee. I don’t care what the circumstances are, you don’t do. And listen, we don’t always agree with them, we have our favorites, we have our least favorites, Mazzagatti, you know. The guy, no matter how good or whatever you feel about him, they are there for your safety. They are there to keep you safe. F***ing, that dope isn’t the… you know what I mean?”

“This guy is the f***ing judge of when a fight should or shouldn’t be stopped? You’re a fighter, you go until the referee tells you to stop. John McCarthy is very qualified in what he does, he’s been here a lot longer than f***ing Roy Nelson has been. And for Roy Nelson to go over and put his f***ing hands on a referee, it can’t happen. It can never happen. But John is sitting there on his knees, tending to Bigfoot, and you come up behind him and f***ing kick him? It’s despicable, it’s disgusting, it can never f**king happen, ever again.”

White said that the UFC is waiting to see how CABMMA responds.

CABMMA says that the newly formed Superior Justice Court for MMA (STJDMMA) investigated and will be filing a formal complaint with the STJD. It is now up to the president of the STJD to accept the complaint from the STJDMMA.