Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight title contenders, Anthony Smith and Glover Teixeira, are set to hook ‘em up in the upcoming UFC Fight Night 173 main event on Sat., April 25, 2020, live on ESPN+ from inside Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The fight will be a nice change of pace for “Lionheart,” who is used to spending a majority of his pre-fight camp responding to trash talk. And to his point, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bad word said about Teixeira in his eight years with UFC.
“He’s one of the good guys in this sport and, especially these days, I think some of those guys are a dying breed,” Smith told MMA Junkie. “He’s just always been nothing but respectful to me. I think it’ll be a third or fourth-round finish. I’m not sure if it’ll be a knockout or a submission, but I think that eventually he’ll get frustrated and he’ll have to start taking bad shots.”
Smith (33-14) has not competed since his fourth-round submission win over Alexander Gustafsson at UFC Stockholm last June, thanks to a pesky hand injury that required surgery. As for Teixeira (30-7), he’s captured three straight wins with two finishes dating back to summer 2018.
To see the rest of the UFC Lincoln fight card and line up click here.