Anthony Smith took off his gloves, but had no intention of retiring after UFC on ABC 4.
Smith, a former light heavyweight contender, dropped a unanimous decision to Johnnie Walker last Saturday and proceeded to remove his gloves while still in the cage, sparking speculation about his future.
Smith (36-18 MMA, 11-8 UFC), 34, explains that he took off his gloves simply because they upset him and insisted he still had a fight left in him.
“First of all, I’m not retiring,” Smith said. “believe me” Podcast. “It doesn’t happen. Not like that, that’s for sure. I’m not going out like that. I still have it. There are some problems I’d definitely have to fix, but it definitely won’t happen like this.”
“It wouldn’t be on a whim. This isn’t the first time I’ve taken my gloves off in the cage before. It’s been heavily documented that I’ve had a lot of hand injuries. Gloves and hand wraps bother me. They hang on my hands, they’re tight and open them. They chafe my hands.”
Smith entered the Walker fight after undergoing surgery to repair his ankle, which was injured in a TKO loss to Magomed Ankalaev last July. Leg kicks were again a problem for Smith, who was visibly hampered after cutting Walker wide throughout the fight. Smith was honest in his assessment of how things are going and what needs to be addressed moving forward.
He made no excuses and praised Walker for his effective game plan.
“There’s a glaring hole in my game,” said Smith. “It’s leg kicks. It’s become a liability at this point. There’s no hole in my game anymore. It’s a liability. I’d like to see the numbers and see how many leg kicks I’ve taken in my UFC career. It should be in the thousands. At this point, it wasn’t Checking them well enough that I’ve checked quite a few of those kicks, and it got to a point where checking didn’t matter.
“It hurts more to check it than to lift it up and eat it. So I think over time I’ve taken so many that my legs didn’t take them as well as they used to. We’ve taken it over and over again. We’ve changed my stance, we’ve changed my movement, we’ve changed mass, we’ve changed defense, and I do Practically, for whatever reason, I engage in combat, and I can’t do that in combat. I don’t know why.”
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