UFC light heavyweight contender and analyst, Anthony Smith has questioned where former lightweight and featherweight champion, Conor McGregor musters up the gall to tweet and deleted various personal attacks toward former fighters — amid a continued period of scathing remarks aimed at Khabib Nurmagomedov, as well as UFC colour commentators, Daniel Cormier and Michael Bisping.
Smith, who clashes with the streaking knockout ace, Ryan Spann at UFC Vegas 37 on September 18. spoke with LowKick MMA reporter, James Lynch recently where he gave his thoughts on recent Twitter tirades from the former two-weight gold holder, McGregor.
“I can’t handle the tweeting stuff,” Anthony Smith said. “I didn’t like it when he was attacking Khabib (Nurmagomedov) and his family and his religion and the personal stuff. Me and Luke Rockhold have gone back-and-forth several times and neither one of us has ever attacked each other personally. Even Jon (Jones) and I — I mean, it’s got a little personal but it hasn’t really crossed ove to like, too much. He’s made some jokes and he thinks he’s funny and whatever. but it’s never gotten to that point where we were attacking each other’s families.“
“With Conor it’s just — it’s too far, it’s way too far,” Smith explained. “Take all this fighting bullsh*t out of the picture — like people get shot for a lot less than that just walking down the street, I dont know. Maybe I just grew up different. Maybe I’ve grew up different and I’ve seen some crazier sh*t.“
Last night, the 33-year-old Dubliner claimed that the aforenoted former middleweight champion, Bisping, fled to the United States after alluding to a group of people who he claims came knocking on his mother’s door. According to Smith, the fact McGregor employs numerous security personal makes him feel “untouchable” and free to speak in that manner.
“Like I’m just so shocked that he (McGregor) has the balls to — like I don’t understand why you feel so free to say things like that, like is he really that untouchable and really just feels like he’s just free to say what he wants?” Smith said. “Maybe, I guess he’s got a bunch of security around him. There’s some people that you can’t talk like that about. It’s just — it’s weird to me.“
“He seems to be spinning, he seems to be spiraling a little bit,” Smith explained. “And it’s just disappointing, you know, you have people ask you all the time, ‘What’s Conor really like?’ I don’t really know — I don’t know Conor, but I know people who have had lots of interactions with Conor and have had nothing but positive things to say about him. That he’s fantastic in private. That he tips well. That he takes care of the people who take care of him.“
“I can’t stick up for Conor anymore,” Anthony Smith continued. “It’s easy to say, oh, it’s just a show it’s just to sell fights, it’s an image, but it’s probably really is just who Conor is as a person and that’s kinda sad.“
In the midst of a two-fight winning run, renowned knockout, and submission ace, Smith has rebounded from a two-fight losing run to stop Devin Clark in a short-notice headliner last November before taking an opening round doctor’s stoppage victory over the uber-prospect, Jimmy Crute at UFC 261 in April after the Australian suffered from drop-foot.