[rtkwe]

1) The reviewer may have had similar work and wanted to hold up the publishing of OP’s paper while finishing their own work. Or there’s some personal animus. Or OP’s paper may have threatened to surplant the reviewers work. There’s a whole plethora of reason for a particularly hostile review. It’s a big enough problem that my partner who’s going through grad school now had the option of requesting specific people NOT be on the reviews for her (first publishing in gradschool as a first author!) paper because of scooping, animus towards her PI, etc. that may have resulted in an overly hostile review.