Former UFC light heavyweight title challenger Anthony Smith is the latest MMA fighter to reprimand Conor McGregor.
Anthony Smith says former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) king Conor McGregor has crossed the line so much he’s doing victory laps.
Smith has had less than delightful exchanges with fighters, including former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Jon Jones in the lead-up to their title fight. McGregor, however, is taking things way too far for “Lionheart” with his tweets and press conference chatter.
“I can’t handle the tweeting stuff. 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,” Smith told James Lynch (h/t LowKickMMA.com). Even Jon [Jones] and I, I mean, it got a little personal but it hasn’t really crossed over 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. Take all this fighting bulls—t out of the picture, like, people get shot for a lot less than that just walking down the street, I don’t know. Maybe I just grew up different. Maybe I’ve grown up different and I’ve seen some crazier s—t,” he continued. “Like I’m just so shocked that he [McGregor] has the balls to [do this]. 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? Maybe, I guess he’s got a bunch of security around him. There are some people that you can’t talk like that about. It’s just weird to me.”
Smith vs. Ryan Spann is expected to headline UFC Vegas 37, taking place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sat., Sept. 18 via ESPN+.
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