UFC light heavyweight Anthony Smith knows where he went wrong in his one-sided loss to Johnny Walker at UFC Charlotte last week. Smith appeared on a recent episode of Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast to discuss the fight and the discussion surrounding his potential retirement.
Specifically, Smith knows that Johnny Walker’s vicious leg kicks – which had Smith’s lead leg visibly bruised and swollen early in the fight – were the deciding factor in slowing “Lionheart” down.
UFC’s Anthony Smith Reveals “Glaring Hole” That Lead to Johnny Walker Defeat
“There is a glaring hole in my game. It’s the leg kicks. It’s become a liability at this point. It’s not even a hole in my game anymore, it’s a liability. I’d love to see the numbers and see how many leg kicks I’ve absorbed in my UFC career. It’s gotta be in the thousands. At this point, checking them isn’t even good enough.
It hurt worse to check it than to just lift it and take it. I think, over time, I’ve taken so many that my leg just isn’t taking them as well as it used to. We’ve addressed it over and over.
We’ve changed my stance, we’ve changed my movement, we’ve changed the block. Andrew Sanchez destroyed my leg with leg kicks, Jon Jones destroyed my leg with leg kicks, Volkan Oezdemir destroyed my leg with leg kicks, Héctor Lombard, even Alexander Gustafsson a little bit; Aleksandar Rakić put me down with two. It’s a liability.”
Smith continued, insisting that this setback isn’t the end of his story. Smith refuses to retire at this stage of his career despite calls to do so from so-called fans.
“It’s probably the most hate I’ve got, probably ever. It’s, ‘You need to retire, you’re trash, you suck.’ First of all, I’m not retiring. It’s not happening.
Not like that, that’s for sure. I’m not going out like that. Listen, I still have it. There’s problems I gotta fix for sure, but, I don’t know, it’s definitely not gonna happen like that.”
Perhaps aggravating retirement rumors was Smith’s choice to remove his gloves in the Octagon post-fight. He countered, however, that that’s simply a matter of comfort and injury prevention.
“It’s not the first time I’ve taken my gloves off in the cage before. It’s very documented that I’ve had lots of hand injuries. The gloves and the hand wraps bother me. They cramp my hands, they’re tight, they hold them open; it bothers me. Not retired.”
