Anthony Smith doesn’t want pat on the back for continuing to fight
In the main event of UFC 235, Anthony Smith had a chance to win the belt. Jon Jones struck him with an illegal knee. So, if Smith couldn’t continue, Jones would have been DQ’d and Smith would have been the new light heavyweight champion. Well, Smith decided to continue as post-fight said he wanted to win the belt not steal it.
Ultimately, many people commended Smtih on social media. But, for him, he isn’t looking for praise as that was the only thing to do.
“That’s the part that pisses me off,” Smith said on a recent appearance on The Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (transcription via Bloody Elbow). “This world is so crazy. I don’t need a pat on the back for doing the right thing. It’s like when you see people saying, ‘Oh my God, look at how good of a dad he is.’ You are supposed to be involved in your children’s life. You’re supposed to take care of your kids, you’re supposed to love your wife.
“You’re supposed to do all those things, and you’re supposed to do the right things when it comes down to not taking the coward’s way out. I don’t need a pat on the back for that and that’s why I haven’t talked about it,” he added. “I just think I did the right thing.”
Really, Smith is mad at how that whole situation played out. In the title fight, Smith couldn’t get anything going and when he took the knee, he was losing that round by a landslide.
“I was more pissed off that I took the knee because I was stuck on the bottom for like two or three minutes trying to get up not to take a knee. And I took it anyways,” he said. “So I was kind of chewing my own ass, That’s what you get for being a pussy. You should’ve just stood up and taken the knee if it came and then got back to your feet. It’s like I almost punished myself, ‘That’s what you get for hanging out and trying to be slick,’ you know?”
