Anthony Smith is setting the record straight on what exactly is going on with him and Alex Pereira.
“Lionheart” is unlikely to receive another UFC title shot soon, which is one reason why he’s confused that the reigning light heavyweight champion keeps bringing him up. The most recent verbal volley between the two saw Pereira issue a $50,000 grappling challenge to Smith, which Smith gladly accepted following his win over Vitor Petrino at UFC 301 this past weekend.
In Smith’s role as an analyst, he recently pointed out that Pereira, a former kickboxing star, has found incredible success in MMA despite his still-developing grappling. That led to much back-and-forth between Smith and Pereira — and Pereira’s fans — and Smith wants to make it clear that he’s simply taking what the champ is giving him.
“Here’s another thing I catch a lot of shit about,” Smith said on The MMA Hour. “Everywhere, ‘Oh, of course Anthony wants to grapple Alex Pereira. Of course he only wants to do one part of mixed martial arts.’ Because it wasn’t my f*cking idea. It wasn’t my f*cking idea. Every single time grappling has been brought up with Alex Pereira, he f*cking brought it up. I’ve never challenged him to anything, not even a fight, because I haven’t been in a position where I can confidently call him out. The answer to whatever the f*ck he wants to do is yes.
“If he wants to fight, box, kickbox, wrestle, f*cking thumb wrestle, checkers, chess, Halo on Xbox, I don’t give a f*ck. Whatever he wants to do, the answer is yes. But I’m not the one who keeps challenging him. If he wants to grapple, yes, I will absolutely do that. I would choose that over everything that I just said, that would be the most fun for me, for sure. But I’m not the one who keeps bringing it up.”
Pereira was in attendance at UFC 301 in Rio de Janeiro to witness Smith’s fight firsthand. As Smith entered the cage, “Poatan” pretended to be asleep and shared video of his gag on social media.
Though Smith didn’t notice Pereira’s antics live, he did watch the video later and he admits he found it amusing.
“It’s weird,” Smith said. “I don’t come at him. I’ve never come for him like that. Of course, you have the title belt in my division, so when people say, ‘What’s your goal?’ I want to fight the champion. I want to fight Alex Pereira. But he goes out of his way to pick at me, which is fine. It doesn’t bother me, I think it’s awesome actually, it’s kind of a lot of fun because he has a sense of humor.
“Like I’ve always said, he’s not this guy that’s just a serial killer mindset. He’s got a sense of humor, he’s funny, he has a really good pulse on social media and he does a good job of molding and weaving in and out of media stuff. He’s very, very intelligent, so I enjoy that part of it. It’s just weird to me.”
Smith’s win at UFC 301 not only made him the first fighter to defeat Petrino, it was Smith’s first win ever in Brazil. He previously fought in Belém in February 2018, when he suffered a knockout loss to Thiago Santos that prompted a move up to light heavyweight that changed Smith’s career.
He’s since fought the best of the best at 205 pounds, once challenging Jon Jones for UFC gold, and he’s approaching the latter stages of his career with patience and appreciation. Surprisingly, it’s a philosophy that he picked up from Pereira’s close friend and coach, Glover Teixeira.
“Glover gave me a lot of life advice, a lot of career advice,” Smith said. “That’s what he did. He just threw himself 100 percent into every single fight and just took one at a time. And he just put enough ‘one-at-a-times’ together and he found himself in a title fight.”
