Anthony Smith Would Have Fired His Coaches If They Stopped Glover Texieria
Fans were critical of the corner of Anthony Smith during his bout with Glover Texieria, wishing they had stopped the bout. However the light heavyweight contender says that things would not have gone well for his coaches if they had done that.
In his main event spot at UFC Jacksonville, Anthony took a massive beating at the hands of a 40-year old Glover. At first things were going well for the Oklahoma native, until some hard shots landed in the third, changing the complexion of the contest. From there things only got worse, with Anthony losing teeth and suffering a ton of other injuries, en route to a fifth round stoppage.
Following the fight there were concerns about the amount of damage Anthony Smith took in the fight. The referee in charge of the bout already stated that he felt that he could have done better in the fight, but some feel that it was Anthony’s corner’s responsibility to end the bout as their fighter took too much damage. However Smith does not agree with that. In fact, as he told ESPN he would have fired his coaches, had they stepped in on this fight, or any other.
“I feel bad because they’re in a tough spot. I don’t know if they wanted to stop it or if they thought about it. But, I take that option away from them before any of this ever happened, before anything. I took that option away a long time ago. If you want to sit in my corner, that’s my rule. You don’t stop the fight. Leave it in my hands. Don’t take it out of my hands. So, I’ve told them before, if you stop the fight ot if you throw the towel in, you can go ahead and walk back to the locker room by yourself because I’ll never stand by you again.
“I don’t need liabilities in my corner. The way that I fight, I end up in sh—y spots sometimes. That’s just how it goes. Most of the time, I’ve been able to come back and win, and sometimes, you can’t. Sometimes you just run out of time, and sometimes it’s just too high of a hill to climb. But, I don’t need those liabilities. I don’t need to be getting to bad spots, working my a– off to try to get to a better position, and constantly have in the back of my head worried that my corners gonna step in and not give me the opportunity.
“Whether they did or didn’t it didn’t matter. That’s the rule. We don’t stop fights. That’s it. There’s a lot of people that is on, and that is the referee and the doctor. There’s a reason those people have a job. Like, that’s their job. If he thought that it needed to be stopped, then that’s on him. If the doctor thinks that I can’t continue, then that’s on him,” Anthony Smith concluded. “That’s his job, that’s what he went to school for, that’s what he’s being paid for. I’m paying (my corner) to help me win fights. I don’t need them constantly in the back of their head worried about how much damage I’m taking. That’s not their job, they are paid to help me win fights, that’s it.”
Anthony Smith is well within his rights to feel the way he does about the role of his corner. Regardless, the fans are only coming from a place of concern when they offer these criticisms of the fight not being stopped. Nobody wants to see the worst case scenario become a reality.
