Anthony Smith got back into the win column back at UFC Stockholm when he beat Alexander Gustafsson by submission. Before that, he lost his first UFC title fight by decision to Jon Jones.
For Smith, he was not happy with his performance as he says he did not initiate his game plan. But, he admits that is because Jon Jones is hard to train for, and makes you freeze when you fight him. So, “Lionheart” is rather certain no one will beat Jones on their first attempt as it takes a while to understand him.
“I said the same sh*t going into it. It is not that simple. Now that I have 25 minutes of data on Jon Jones it totally looks different the second time around. But, you are right it is different, he is very different. There is no way of knowing that or training for that until you are in there with him. That’s the thing,” Smith said to The Mac Life (as transcribed by BJPENN.com). “I don’t want to just outright say it, but it is going to be hard to beat Jon Jones the first time for anybody, it really is. Unless you catch him, he’s going to be hard to beat on the first time. Thiago could catch anybody though, that dude is dangerous, he’s explosive, he could hurt anybody. I just don’t see him getting close enough to Jon to do it.”
Whether or not Anthony Smith will get another title shot is up in the air. But, he promises that when he does it will be a much different fight than at UFC 235.
