It seems UFC lightweight and analyst Anthony “Lionheart” Smith is no fan of MMA fans. Smith recently took out his frustrations with the MMA community on a recent episode of The MMA Hour, declaring that fans “hate” him for being popular. In fact, if you ask Smith, he hates the leadup to the fight as much as the fans hate him.
“I still love it just as much as I always have, the actual fight. But the road leading up to the night,] I hate it. I hate it. I hate every second of it.”
UFC’s Anthony Smith Blasts MMA Fans: “They Hate You!”
Smith elaborated. “The more popular I get, the more I hate it, to be honest with you. Maybe popular is the wrong word. The more, maybe recognizable? I don’t know. I don’t even know how to state it.
It’s just, everyone outside of this whole circus show makes it really miserable for the people inside of it. Maybe I’m one of the few guys that will be honest about that. The fans used to be the thing that drove you. They’d push you through and they would support you.
And once you get to a certain level, then they hate you.
So they’ll build you up, and when you’re feeling down and things are hard, and you’re trying to grind, you’re chasing this dream that everyone has in their head, the supporters and the fans and the people around you are kind of the ones that help push you to the finish line.
And you hear the champions and the biggest superstars in the sport talk about, ‘You know, I do this for the fans.’ They’re full of s***. It sucks. It sucks, because you get s*** on way more the higher up you grow in this sport.”
And I’m not playing some like poor, poor pitiful me thing. I put myself in a great position just in life through all this. But you asked the question.
The outside circus show makes it really intolerable at times.” Smith did clarify, however, that his love of the game outweighs his hatred of just about everything else about it.
“I love fighting more than I hate the other part of it. I really do. I love fighting. I love it. I love every second. Like, I was really upset and just disappointed after the [Walker] fight. [But] there was a part of me that, like, really enjoyed it. It didn’t go my way, but like, really enjoyed being in there.
