Donald Cerrone denies stealing seats from Anthony Smith’s mom.
Anthony Smith recently shared a story from his title bout at UFC 235, where Donald Cerrone and influencer Dan Bilzerian were both “shithouse drunk” and supposedly decided to steal front row seats from his wife and mother.
“They come and they want to sit down and watch the fight. But they’re f—ng hammered. Just shithouse drunk. They tell (my family) that those were their seats,” Smith claimed. “They kind of go back-and-forth a little bit, and literally, Dan Bilzerian and Donald Cerrone removed my mom and wife from their seats while I’m getting ready to fight Jon Jones. I was f—ng furious.”
According to Smith, his mother eventually ended up next to Bilzerian, who supposedly just started watching porn during the title fight. Smith described a pretty bizarre story, but it’s one that Cerrone now calls completely “fabricated.”
Cerrone fights this weekend, and he responded during the UFC pre-fight press conference.
“For one, I saw Anthony a couple of times and he never said anything, so why he waited for three years to go by — I just don’t know if he’s trying to stay relevant, why he would bring that up,” Cerrone said (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “You know, because you go to the fights, your name is literally on your chair in Dana’s section. So, ‘Cowboy. Cowboy.’ Nobody was sitting in my seat when we showed up there. It’s not like we were like, ‘Hey, mom, get out, you’re not in this seat.’ You walk in the back, the security grabs you and walks you to your seat, ‘Ticket 6, 7, OK, right there and there.’
“It’s not like you can just free range walk around any seat you want and be like, ‘Get out, you’re in my seat’ or ‘Get out, I want to sit there.’ And if they were there and we kicked them out, how did we find another seat? The whole story doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t get it, but I’m not sure where he even fabricated this story from. It’s funny to me and then to say Dan was in there watching porn. That means after we threw your grandma and mom out of their seat, they sat behind us? It’s strange to me, so I don’t know.”
“I don’t get why Anthony didn’t just come to me and call me. If he was there and seen it and witnessed it, why wasn’t something said right there on the spot? Why would you wait three years to come out with it? And if I was drunk — which probably was a pretty serious case at a UFC fight — the seat still said ‘Cowboy’ on it.
“I don’t recall kicking anybody out. Could it have happened? Possibly. Doubt it. But I would definitely not have kicked somebody’s mom or grandma out of a seat, I’m not that guy. If it was another dude, probably like, ‘Hey man, scoot over, you’re in my seat.’ But someone’s mom? I’m not that guy. Plus, I know everybody here. I would just find another seat. It’s a strange story to me, but whatever.”
Perhaps only the others in that same moment know the full truth, but for what it’s worth, even if we don’t consider how they were supposedly inebriated, it wouldn’t all be surprising if Cerrone doesn’t recall details from an event that happened three years ago.
For Cerrone, it could be a very minor interaction or misunderstanding from the countless UFC events he attended, while it would surely be a bigger, more memorable situation for Smith’s family, who were likely all anxious about watching a loved one fight for the title.