“I Come Out Of Battle With My Shield Or On It”-Anthony Smith Sends Message After Losing 2 Teeth

Anthony Smith required immediate medical assistance after his loss to Glover Teixeira.

Anthony Smith and Glover Teixeira faced each other at Wednesday’s UFC event. With both men having suffered defeat at the hands of Jon Jones in the past, this fight was surely interesting. However, went Teixeira dominated the match, as Smith received the beating of a lifetime within those 5 rounds.

At some point during the fight, Smith was heard telling his corner that his “teeth were falling out”. This came as a result of Teixeira’s brutal punches that did severe damage to Smith. And ESPN’s Ariel Helwani later confirmed that Smith actually did lose some of his real teeth, along with many other facial injuries.

Smith said, “I couldn’t keep my mouthpiece in due to the missing tooth. I looked down and it was on the canvas. So I grabbed it and handed it to him.” Smith lost 2 teeth, one from the front and another from the back. He also left the octagon with a broken nose, broken orbital bone, and a cut under his right eye.

Almost everyone watching at home or even live at the event were stunned that his corner let him continue to receive that punishment. They didn’t intervene. Even the referee after didn’t stop it after he was literally handed a pair of teeth from Smith’s mouth.

Daniel Cormier, who was commenting, said, “I would have stopped the fight, corner could have saved their guy from getting finished. Some mistakes in that corner tonight. And I love those guys! Too much instruction, no crowd to filter it. Anthony Smith is a savage.”

Anthony Smith is happy with his corner’s decision

Smith, doing complete justice to his nickname “lionheart”, pushed on. He later said he was happy with the decisions made, both by his team and the referee.

Smith said, “I’m good with the decisions the referee and my corner made. When the ref made it clear he needed to see something or he 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.”

Anthony Smith will take a while to recover from this. Do you think the referee should have stopped the fight earlier than he did?