One that Smith will pull out all the stops to avoid, not just for the fans’ sake, but his own, and while the 34-year-old has always been a confident fighter, he sounds even more sure of victory this time around.
“He (Ankalaev) doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, but it’s because he doesn’t do enough things to afford himself the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes,” said Smith of his opponent. “He does a really good job when he fights inside of the box. He has a box he likes to stay in, he doesn’t like to get outside of it, and I think the couple times people have gotten him outside of the box, he panics to get back in it, and that’s where I’ll catch him. I’m an instinctual fighter, I catch people in transitions, I fight really well in the gray area, I perform really well under the fire, and he doesn’t. He wants to put fires out, and my job is to continue to keep setting them. (Laughs) And the bulk of my work will be making him uncomfortable and actually forcing him to fight. He’s not Jon Jones. Jon Jones does a really good job of avoiding ever actually getting in a fight, and Ankalaev is not that guy. He’s not. And that’s my plan – just to create chaos and win every little transition in a gray area.”
UFC 277 EMBEDDED: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5
Bold words, especially when talking about a fighter who could be 18-0 right now if not for a literal last-second loss to Paul Craig in his UFC debut in 2018. But Smith isn’t anointing Ankalaev the next champion yet. He’s saving that title for himself, and if he needs to make a statement against the Russian standout to do it, so be it.
“To be fair, I’m probably the first one that doesn’t give a f**k about who he is,” said Smith. “We can talk about his eight-fight win streak all we want, but if I was fighting some of the people he was fighting, I’d be on an eight-fight win streak, too. I’ve been at the top of the division since 2018, since I’ve been at 205. My second fight was a guy in the Top Ten. I’m not fighting your (Nikita) Krylovs and your (Ion) Cutelabas. I know that some people look at those as good wins, but I would love me a Krylov-Cutelaba three-peat; that would be great.”
