Just as a matter of curiosity, how does the nextResponder method implementation of the UIView class know who is the UIViewController that manages the view?
The UIResponder docum
If you look at UIView.h, you can see a member variable named _viewDelegate that is of type UIViewController*, this is probably where the view controller reference is stored when the viewcontroller's view property is set, and where it knows to look when you call nextResponder.