Roy Nelson Gets Bitter -- Over a Win?

Making more media rounds Wednesday and Thursday was “Ultimate Fighter” winner Roy Nelson, who did a very commendable job of making Kimbo Slice look like a white belt on the mat. (And so far as we know, he is.) So why does he sound slightly bitter about the whole thing?

The problem, according to Roy, is that his win was contrasted against the stacked deck that was the UFC’s favoritism over Slice. “First round was 44 punches to the face, and then Herb Dean doesn’t know how to ref, but we’ve seen that before,” he told USA Today. “And then the next round was 22 punches. You could even see me yelling at Herb Dean, ‘Come on, ref.’…But the thing is, there’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of money…So I think it was more that Herb Dean was afraid to lose his job, because there's a lot of people with a lot of money that can have a lot of influence with his career.”

Insinuating the referee was colluding with management to keep Slice on the winning track is a heavy statement to put over Dean. If anything, you’d think that rationale would prompt him to stop the fight more quickly: Slice’s odds against Nelson were never good and promoters could feed the “premature stoppage” angle to viewers to keep Slice’s popularity from gassing out.

But that’s only if you’re into conspiracy theories. I’m not, but Nelson clearly likes to indulge.