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Anthony Smith is willing to do whatever it takes just to keep fighting.
UFC light heavyweight contender Anthony Smith has been fighting professionally for nearly 12 years now. Bearing the nickname “Lionheart,” he is also as tough as they come.
On Monday’s episode of the Ariel Helwani MMA Show on ESPN, the 31-year-old fighter detailed how a broken hand became problematic to a point where he considered severing one of his fingers.
“I had two [surgeries]. The first one failed,” Smith explained (transcript by MMA Fighting). “I went into my six-week checkup after my first surgery and the plate was broken and the bone had shifted back again… So they went back in, they took the plate off, they drilled one hole in my femur, one in my shin, and they took out the spongy bone material they used for bone grafts in my hand. And then they put another plate on the side of it instead of on top because there are so many large holes.
“So they put it on the side and then filled the holes with the spongy bone from my leg. So that was a rough one. Then I couldn’t close my hand for probably two months. My left hand.”
Smith says the decision to cut off his index finger came after the scar tissue build-up became too problematic for him to handle.
“I almost cut my finger off,” he said. “We were going to amputate my pointer finger because all the scar tissue was grabbing onto the ligament and not allowing it to close and slide back and forth.
“So the idea was that if we amputated the finger and then screwed those ligaments to the bone after it healed, that I could still use the other three fingers and my thumb to grapple but there would still technically be a knuckle there so I could punch.”
Eventually, Smith found another solution that eventually saved him from sawing off any digits from his hand.
“Some crazy old lady did this different type of therapy where they attached electricity to my wrist and my forearm and moved it around and was able to catch the muscle that closes the hand and really, she just crushed through the scar tissue,” he explained. “So once she put electricity to it, it forced my hand closed – because the bone was still healing and by forcefully closing it, you’re putting a lot of tension on that break.
“I couldn’t close it myself because I didn’t have the strength, and as I’m not moving it, the scar tissue just continues to build and build and build so by attaching electricity to it, it’s essentially me closing my own hand without someone else doing it with all that tension on the break. So once we tore through all that scar tissue the first time, we just did that every single day until I was able to get the movement back in it and now it’s good…
“I was ready to go but my wife and the UFC wanted to explore other options first,” Smith continued. “So that crazy lady saved my finger for sure. I was ready just to say screw it all, I’m sick of this rehab stuff and scraping the scar tissue out of it and continually opening my hand up to get the scar tissue out. I was just ready to get back to fighting and cutting my finger off, at that time, was the fastest way.”
After his unsuccessful attempt to win the UFC light heavyweight title from Jon Jones, Smith fought Alexander Gustafsson last June in the latter’s hometown in Stockholm, Sweden. He won via fourth-round submission and bagged an extra $50,000 for Performance of the Night.