- A UFC doctor has been threatened and called "f---ing scum" for calling an end to Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz's fight on Saturday.
- Masvidal beat Diaz to a bloody pulp, dominating the fight from rounds one to three before Dr. Nitin K. Sethi advised the referee to end the bout before round four.
- Sethi has said he now fears for his health and safety.
- "Somebody's going to get hurt, and it's probably going to be me this time," he told MMA Fighting.
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The doctor who ended Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz's fight says he fears for his life after receiving threats from furious fans.
Masvidal beat Diaz after three rounds at the UFC 244 event at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Saturday night after Dr. Nitin K. Sethi deemed Diaz unfit to continue because of deep cuts to his face.
The crowd booed the result, and Masvidal, the winner, even said in a post-fight interview that they could "run it back" - he was eager to rematch Diaz.
Sethi told MMA Fighting that he had been called "f---ing scum" in the aftermath and that fight fans had even called his office to protest his decision and threaten him.
"I'm a very good neurologist and a very good doctor," he said. "Calling me f---ing scum online and calling my office staff and yelling at them, threatening me, I fear for my health and safety.
"Somebody's going to get hurt, and it's probably going to be me this time."
UFC's president, Dana White, said after the fight that there would be no immediate rematch as Masvidal had greater options in his near future and Diaz needed time to recover and come back.
But Sethi is still living with the decision, one he said he took because of imminent concern to Diaz's health and safety. Diaz was dominated by Masvidal, losing each round in the three-round battle including a lopsided 10-8 score in the second round.
"I made an objective call based on my assessment of the fighter," he told MMA Fighting. "Not just the cut, but the overall assessment of the fighter [and] how the fight was going. Once I felt I could not guarantee the health and safety going forward, I had to make a tough call."
Sethi said the abuse began before he had even left the arena, with people in what he described as a "very, very charged crowd" yelling "f--- this, f--- that."
He added that he hoped the backlash he had endured did not prevent doctors hired by state commissions from being able to make tough decisions in the interest of fighter safety going forward.
"The only thing sad about this will be you'll have doctors who will now be very afraid to make calls," he said. "And when people are scared to make calls because they're so afraid of the repercussions, I think we're entering dangerous territory."
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