Anthony Smith did not finish his end of fairy tale.
The longtime veteran of the UFC suffered a brutal loss of stop in the hands of Zhang Mingyang in China during his retirement fight on Saturday during the main event of the UFC Kansas City, which took place at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Mingyang finished Smith under a hailstorm of elbows anchored at 4:03 of the opening round to send Smith to retire to a sequence of three defeats.
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“I felt good, but once I was cut with this elbow, it was bleeding in my eyes,” said Smith afterwards. “He does an excellent job in the melee. Listen, at the end of the day, five years ago, he is a beaten guy. Here I am, I get older. This is what it is, the father's time is gaining this evening.
“Each of you has had an impact on my life. When I started this game, I was homeless, I had nothing for me. And now this platform allowed me to raise my family, my four beautiful girls, and to give them a life that I could never have. From the bottom of my heart, thank you very much.”
Despite his emotional night, Smith (38-22) received no district by Mingyang (19-6) of the opening horn. The light heavy weight is shared Smith open with a step-in elbow at the start of the first round, letting blood run into his eyes. Mingyang continued to explode Smith with standing elbows, then did more the same thing once Smith hit the ground, leaving “Lionheart” in a swimming pool of his own blood while referee Jason Herzog intervened to signal the action.
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Smith, 36, made his debut in the UFC for a move to a fight in 2013, but did not start his real octagon race until his second chance begins in 2016. He won seven of his first nine appearances in this second occasion, including a sequence of destructive 3-0 after jumping from the average weight to a heavy goods vehicle. This led to a shot as light heavyweights of the UFC against Jon Jones, which Smith lost via a unanimous decision, but he gained great respect for having refused to play the system and put an end to the combat on a disqualification of Jones after having supported an illegal knee at the head of the then.
Smith went 6-8 in his appearances in the last 14 octagon after his only shot in the title, but remained a pillar of the classification of the contenders of 205 pounds throughout his farewell fight on Saturday. During his MMA 17 -year career, Smith won notable victories against former UFC champion Mauricio Rua and Rashad Evans, former Bellator Hector Lombard champion, as well as the UFC title challengers Alexander Gustafsson and Volkan Oezdemir.
Smith's World was shaken last November after the premature death of his longtime coach Scott Morton, that “Lionheart” admitted this week to pass his transition to retirement.
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Smith finally comes out of sport with a 13-12 record compiled on 25 UFC fights.
“I don't mean that it seems arrogant or arrogant, but I have never had, so far, that I had done something that deserves to be celebrated,” said Smith “The Ariel Helwani Show from Non-Couronne”. “I never had the impression that I had to be celebrated. It is never something I was looking for, but I have the impression that now I have made the career that I should be proud of, and I should deserve to be able to celebrate it and be happy. Really, really, really hard, and I'm just going to celebrate what I could do.
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“I came from nothing. People like me who come from where I come from don't do things like that. They don't do it, and I should be happy that it happened and not allow me to think about the things I have not accomplished.”
