Anthony Smith has been training with Chris Weidman ahead of his fight at UFC 277.
‘Lionheart’ needed a change of scenery for his number one contender fight next week in Dallas, TX, at UFC 277. The 33-year-old has been a Factory X staple for several years, but he has spread his wings for his upcoming fight against Magomed Ankalaev.
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In a recent exclusive interview with MiddleEasy, Smith detailed where he did most of his fight camp for UFC 277.
“Man, it’s been a lot of fun actually. I think sometimes, you know, maybe I get a little bit stagnant and I don’t know, maybe set in my ways a little bit so I got outside of the box for this one, and I spent a lot of time with Chris Weidman, which I’ve done before you know leading into the Jimmy Crute fight,” Smith said. “I did a good portion of it here at home, bringing in a couple of guys. And you know, kind of just really focusing on getting fundamentally sound and really sharpening my tools here.”
“I did a little bit of it in Aruba. So, I did about seven days, about a week in Aruba, which was a fantastic experience. I think it was just kind of what I needed. Again, get outside of myself a little bit, get a little bit uncomfortable, get a bunch of really, really solid big ass Arubans to push me and get me outside of my comfort zone. It’s a bunch of looks that I haven’t seen; they do things a little bit differently. You know, they’ve got a real cool Brazilian jujitsu coach there that had some really slick shit that was a little bit different than things I’ve seen before. The owner of the Millard MMA Academy was a fantastic striker, a really big dude. The whole experience was cool and it was a little bit of it was nice to train my ass off in the morning and then go, you know, swim with sea turtles in the afternoon and then get your work in, and after that, it’s tough to beat that you know what I mean?”
For Smith’s corner at UFC 277, he revealed that it will be his longtime boxing and jiu-jitsu coach as well as former UFC middleweight champion Weidman.
The former light heavyweight title challenger didn’t say if he parted ways with Factory X for good or not, however.
Smith fights Ankalaev at UFC 277, and all signs are pointing to the winner of the fight being the number one contender for the title.
