- Anthony Smith came clean about how he dealt with his KO loss to Khalil Rountree
- “Lionheart” detailed the obstacles he had to endure heading into the fight
Anthony Smith has finally opened up about his tough KO loss to Khalil Rountree at UFC Vegas 83 in full detail.
Anthony had to unplug
Speaking on Believe You Me podcast, “Lionheart” confided that he intended not to speak with anyone and just stay at home to digest the devastating defeat.
“I haven’t talked to anybody… I’m not even answering text messages. I haven’t even I haven’t even spoken to my manager,” Smith revealed. “… If you’ve text me or reached out and I haven’t responded, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m just in a weird place and sometimes you just have to unplug… I don’t know it was a pretty dark place there for a while.”
The weight cut was harder
Smith went on and discussed how the extra hard weight cut for the Rountree fight also played a role in his loss. According to “Lionheart,” he realized he had a little more weight to cut than usual and it didn’t help that he had to do it in a short period of time.
“I knew that I was in an uphill battle. I knew the position that I put myself in was not going to benefit me I knew that I would kind of put myself behind the gun,” Smith opened up.
“I had quite a bit of weight to cut that was the bigger issue which is initially they wanted me to fight that weekend that he was initially supposed to but I couldn’t make the wait in time,” he added. “So, they bumped it back a week and they gave me a little more time now don’t get me wrong all weight cuts are hard but this one, I don’t want to say it was significantly harder than the other ones because it was about the same but it was a significantly more amount of weight like it was a lot more weight so I was like 236 when they called and I had about 10 days to get to 205.”
Anthony couldn’t see the left hand
Ultimately, Smith admitted to failing to anticipate the left hand during sparring sessions throughout the training camp. In the end, they were prompted to make some adjustments in their game plan.
After making some changes, Smith said he came into the fight thinking everything was fine. However, he did not expect “The War Horse” to be faster than he anticipated.
“In Camp, I just wasn’t seeing the left hand. I wasn’t seeing the straight left,” Smith divulged. “I don’t know that it’s been a while since I’ve been in front of like a real high-level southpaw, to be honest there’s not that many of them out there so especially with that style with that body type so even then I wasn’t seeing it and I don’t know if that’s I just haven’t seen it in a while or if it’s me. I don’t know but I think it’s probably just a time thing… I think I’d figure it out but I wasn’t seeing it so we had to change the game plan in 10 days so we went from having no fight to a game plan, to three days into a 10-day preparation to have to change it because I’m not seeing.”
“It was working and then I went into the fight and he was just way faster than I had anticipated,” he added. “I knew he was going to be fast but he was it was shocking how fast he is. He goes from zero to 100 so fast.”
The loss to Rountree saw Smith failing to follow up his win over Ryan Spann. As it stands, Smith is still one of the top light heavyweights in the UFC and is currently the No. 10 205-pounder in the division.
Check out Smith’s full podcast below:
