Despite Convincing Unanimous Decision Loss, Anthony Smith Still Thinks He Can Defeat Jon Jones
Anthony Smith was defeated, but he survived five rounds of a one-sided blowout against Jon Jones in the main event of UFC 235, which went down from inside T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, last Saturday night (March 2, 2019).
But despite Jones’ dominant win, Anthony Smith still believes he can beat the current 205-pound king. (h/t MMAFighting)
“That’s a beatable man,” Smith said at the evening’s post-fight presser. “I didn’t walk out of there thinking, ‘Wow, he’s a lot better than I thought.’ Like when (Quinton) ‘Rampage’ (Jackson) lost to Jon and he stood there and said. like, ‘This kid’s for real, this guy’s good,’ like almost laying out to Jon. I don’t feel like that.
“I’m not gonna take anything away from him because he did a phenomenal job of doing what he had to do tonight, but I don’t have the feeling that’s a guy that I can’t beat.”
Anthony Smith confessed he didn’t stick to his game plan but pointed out there were few bright spots in his performance too.
“I didn’t do anything I was supposed to do except for defending takedowns and I think I did a much better job of checking kicks than I have in the past. My cardio held up so all you f*cking idiots can stop talking about it. That’s really the only positive I can take from this. It’s a whole f*ck ton of negatives, that’s for sure.”
Anthony Smith was asked whether Jon Jones’ spinning back kicks to the body affected his performance. “Lionheart” said there was a possibility.
“It could have been, I mean as far as the effect that the body kicks had on me like physically it wasn’t there but it definitively gave me something else to look for. You know, again, we worked on those, time and time and time again and it just, I don’t know for whatever reason, his timing was a bit different.”
Jon Jones delivered a soccer kick, which wasn’t sanctioned by Herb Dean. Later he even landed a brutal knee to the head of grounded Anthony Smith in the fourth round, which could result in a disqualification. But Anthony insisted he was ok. The referee abducted two points from “Bones”, and the fight continued.
Anthony Smith was also asked to describe his “thought process” after those two dirty strikes. You can read Anthony’s response below.
“Yeah, the kick was hard, the kick was really hard. And you know, I kind of got lost for a second you know trying to figure out. It was almost times like I was on my feet. Ok, I couldn’t figure where if it wasn’t legal and I realized no I was sitting on my ass. And Herb said that was to the body and we kept on going”, Smith said.
And then the knee, and again I was you know, it’s confusing when sh*t like that happens because you’re not expecting it because you are down, which is exactly why I wasn’t coming straight to my feet because Jon times that stuff so well. You know, you gotta time it perfectly. It was the two hardest shots I took all night.”
Anthony Smith promised he’d cross paths with Jon Jones again.
“I’ll be back,” Smith said. “Jon Jones and I will see each other again, that’s for sure. Because there’s no one else in the entire f*cking division that’s gonna do anything about that. I don’t care who it is. There’s no one else that’s gonna stop me from getting back to Jon Jones.”
Do you agree with Anthony Smith? Would you like to see Jones Vs Smith 2?
