Smith ‘disappointed’ media allowed Jones to use home invasion for publicity

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Anthony Smith didn’t like how his home invasion focused more on a Twitter spat with Jon Jones. Anthony Smith’s unfortunate home invasion came to light early this month when he spo…

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Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Anthony Smith didn’t like how his home invasion focused more on a Twitter spat with Jon Jones.

Anthony Smith’s unfortunate home invasion came to light early this month when he spoke about it himself. A few days later, former adversary Jon Jones commented on the incident, taking shots on how Smith handled the incident.

The two went back-and-forth in the succeeding weeks, putting the overall focus on what seemed to be a brewing spat between them. And if it were up to “Lionheart,” the story wouldn’t have been made public to begin with.

“I’m more disappointed that the media – I didn’t want to tell the story of what happened in my house, anyways,” Smith told MMA Junkie. “If it was up to me I wouldn’t have told anybody. But I’m a public figure and it’s going to come out. If it’s going to come out I would rather have it be on my terms.

“The way that the UFC, and my lawyer, said that if it’s going to come out all over the goddamn world, then it might as well be coming out of my mouth as opposed to some media outlet with 27 followers writes some bullsh-t 250-character writeup on whatever bullsh-t MMA site it is, then it gets twisted and construed then there’s police reports that are super short and one paragraph,” he continued. “I would rather it come out from the source. I’ll tell you what happened. Point A to Point B, that’s how we got there. I didn’t want to tell it to begin with.”

Smith was particularly dismayed by the shift in attention because of the stories written about Jones’ post.

“They took a story I didn’t want to tell anyway and took it from this disaster that happened in my house and turned it into Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith, which is exactly what Jon Jones wanted,” he said. “That’s why he said something. It’s an opportunity for Jon to get in the media, he does it all the time.

“Any time Izzy (Adesanya) fights, who do you hear from? Jon Jones. Whoever. Name your goddamn person. Anytime Jon can get some, he’s going to get some. I can’t believe the media was OK with Jon using this opportunity to get his in.”

Jones himself also complained about the media in a recent post, saying the spotlight should be taken away from him for a change.