Anthony Smith knew he was in no condition to fight at UFC 310, but he powered through anyway.
Smith (38-21 MMA, 13-11 UFC) couldn’t hold back tears during the walkout for his fight against Dominick Reyes this past Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. “Lionheart” suffered a second-round TKO loss to Reyes and was visibly emotional after recently losing his longtime friend and coach, Scott Morton.
“I handle things really well,” Smith said on MMA on SiriusXM. “I’m a f*cking gangster, and I just power through it, but this one is tough. I’ve never struggled like this before. When I got to the fight, I knew right away it was f*cked. I knew right away, as soon as I got to the arena.”
Reyes later revealed that Smith dropped his hands and asked to be punched during the fight. The former title challenger explained what was going through his mind in the moment.
“I got impatient,” Smith said. “I just wanted something to f*cking happen. I just forced it. I just got impatient. Nothing was happening. He wasn’t engaging. I’d seen everything. That was the worst part, too. I was in there, and I was like, ‘Goddamn, you’re not that good.’ And then it hit me like, ‘F*ck, maybe I’m not either.’
“Maybe I’m not either anymore. The left hand wasn’t nearly as fast as I expected it to be. I think I over-predicted how good he was going to be on his feet. He landed a shot here or there, and then at some point where I was like, ‘F*cking hit me or something. I need to f*cking feel something. Give me something here.'”
One more time?
Smith’s good friend and “Believe You Me” podcast co-host, Michael Bisping said he’d like to see him fight one more time. Smith agrees that this isn’t the way he’d like to walk away from the sport.
“There’s a circumstance that probably exists where I would do one more,” Smith said. “I think that’s probably the answer. It would have to be the perfect scenario, timing, opponent, and situation. … I know there’s like never the perfect sendoff for the most part. I hadn’t even thought about it before this fight.
“But having the opportunity to have all the people that supported me, give them the opportunity to come one last time and experience fight week knowing it’s the last time, being able to tell everyone in that process what they meant to me over all these years, like one final flight. Win, lose or draw, who gives a f*ck? But one final sendoff would be cool, I think.”
