A defeated Smith says Jones didn’t run through him, but simply got shut down during their five round encounter.
“I absolutely belong here and I think that the fight alone proves that,” Smith said at the UFC 235 post-fight press conference (via Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “I don’t know what other 205ers are gonna f*ck with me, I just don’t see that happening. I was in there, you know what I mean? And I don’t feel like I got ran through, I just kind of got shut down. I don’t feel like Jon Jones just went in there and beat the shit out of me, I just couldn’t get going. That’s Jon Jones though. I said I needed to force Jon Jones to fight me and I didn’t do that. He didn’t fight me, he nullified me. It’s going to haunt me for a long time and I’m gonna have to get back to the drawing board and sit down with (coaches) Marc (Montoya) and Scott (Morton) and figure out what the f*ck happened.”
Smith suffered his first defeat since moving up to light heavyweight, with the fighter’s record in the division being 3-1-0.
The fighter knows that he has to work through a whole lot of negatives before returning to the Octagon.
“I don’t know what happened. I did exactly what I told everyone I wasn’t gonna do,” Smith said. “I let Jon Jones sit back and be Jon Jones. I guess sometimes you go in there and it’s not your night, I guess. But that’s just not good enough for me. I don’t know, I just couldn’t pull the trigger and when I did, I didn’t combo up like I was supposed to. I didn’t do anything I was supposed to do except for defending takedowns and I think I did a much better job of checking kicks than I have in the past. My cardio held up so all you f*cking idiots can stop talking about it. That’s really the only positive I can take from this. It’s a whole f*ck ton of negatives, that’s for sure.”
It is expected that the #3 ranked Smith will drop down in the UFC Light Heavyweight Division rankings after the loss at UFC 235.
