When you talk about fighters coming up the hard way, Omaha’s Smith could be the picture next to the dictionary definition. After turning pro in 2008, he staggered out to a 5-6 record and that would have been the sign for nine out of ten fighters to look for another line of work. Not Smith, who told me in 2017, “I never questioned it because I always knew that I was good enough. There was never a factor of was I good enough or be able to do it. I just needed to hold it together long enough to figure it out. And that’s how I always thought about it. I always knew, deep in my heart, how good I was, and I wasn’t able to figure out why I wasn’t able to put it together, but I also knew that I’ve always been a late bloomer.”
By 2011, he improved to 13-7 and got a shot in the Strikeforce Challengers series. He split his first two bouts in the promotion, won two bouts on the local circuit, and then got a call for Strikeforce’s big show, and in his first big bout in the spotlight, he delivered with a first-round submission win over Lumumba Sayers. The tide had turned. Or did it?
