Glover Teixeira’s brutal beating of Anthony Smith in the late rounds of their UFC Fight Night 171 headliner was hard to watch and it left ‘Lionheart’ suffering from a number of serious injuries.
Inbetween the fourth and fifth rounds, Smith could be heard telling his corner that his teeth were falling out, which many took as a signal that they should throw in the towel, but they simply ignored him and instead sent him out for the final five minute, which soon resulted in a TKO stoppage.
Later, Smith’s team claimed that they had believed that it was simply his veneer’s that had fallen out since that was a common problem for the fighter.
However, Smith confirmed to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani backstage that he did actually lose two real teeth during the fight, one near the front and one towards the back and had difficulties keeping his mouthpiece in place due to that.
If that wasn’t enough, Smith also suffered a broken orbital bone and a broken nose that only seems to further cement the idea that he was allowed to sustain far more punishment than was neccessary during the bout.
However, Smith has no complaints about the fight being allowed to continue for as long as it did.
“I’m good with the decisions the referee and my corner made,” Smith told ESPN. “When the ref made it clear he needed to see something or was gonna stop it, I did what I had to do to stay in the fight. I come out of battle with my shield or I come out on it. That’s my rule. Period.”
Dana White disagreed though, feeling that the onus was on the referee to stop the fight earlier.
“The ref could’ve stopped that in the fourth,” White said. “Us sitting on the outside, it was a little tough to watch.”
