Light-heavyweight contender Anthony Smith has revealed his corner are under strict instructions to never throw in the towel and have been told they will not be a part of his team if they ever decided to try save him in a fight.
Smith was on the wrong end of a brutal beatdown against Glover Teixeira suffering a long list of injuries including the loss of teeth before referee Jason Herzog stepped in to stop the fight in the fifth and final round. Since the fight, the ‘Lionheart’ corner has come under criticism for failing to pull their fighter out despite the fact he was visibly done fighting and unable to win.
Speaking to ESPN Smith revealed his corner stepping in to save him was never really an option as they face the sack for making such a move, he said.
“I feel bad because they’re in a tough spot. I don’t know if they wanted to stop it or if they thought about it. But, I take that option away from them. Before any of this ever happened, before anything, I took that option away a long time ago. If you want to sit in my corner, that’s my rule. You don’t stop the fight. Leave it in my hands. Don’t take it out of my hands. So, I’ve told them before, if you stop the fight, if you throw the towel in, you can go ahead and walk back to the locker room by yourself because I’ll never stand by you again.
“I don’t need liabilities in my corner. The way that I fight, I end up in shitty spots sometimes. And that’s just how it goes. Most of the time, I’ve been able to come back and win. And sometimes, you can’t. Sometimes you just run out of time, and sometimes it’s just too high of a hill to climb,” Anthony Smith continued. “But, I don’t need those liabilities. I don’t need to be getting to bad spots, working my ass off to try to get to a better position, and constantly have in the back of my head worrying that my corners gonna step in and not give me the opportunity.
“Whether they did or didn’t it didn’t matter. That’s the rule. We don’t stop fights, that’s it. There are a lot of people that is on and that is the referee and the doctor. There’s a reason those people have a job. That’s their job. If he thought that it needed to be stopped, then that’s on him. If the doctor thinks that I can’t continue, then that’s on him.That’s his job, that’s what he went to school for that’s what he’s being paid for. I’m paying them [my corner] to help me win fights. I don’t need them constantly in the back of their head worrying about how much damage I’m taking. That’s not their job, they are paid to help me win fights, that’s it.”
What do you make of Anthony Smith claiming he would fire his team for stopping one of his fights?
Anthony Smith did not seem to appreciate referee Jason Herzog’s apology. Smith suffered a fifth-round TKO defeat to Glover Teixeira in the UFC Jacksonville headliner earlier this week. However, for many observers, the fight could have been stopped sooner with “Lionheart” taking plenty of damage over the course of three rounds. Herzog — refereeing the […]