Recently Anthony Smith raised eyebrows throughout the game when he responded to Colby Covington’s latest attack on Jon Jones in a pretty, fiery/intense manner. Well, now the light-heavyweight context has offered some more context for why he did.

Covington took another verbal poke at Jones recently by raising his well-documented issues with USADA again. Smith, however, proceeded to shut Covington’s comments down by arguing it wasn’t funny. Smith also referenced some sort of incident, whereby, he claimed “Chaos” tucked his “tail” and avoided “Lionheart” when they ran into each other in a Chicago gym.

Well, more recently Smith was on the MMA Hour, and he offered this explanation/claim, for what happened (quotes via MMA Fighting):

“My manager owns a gym in Chicago, so when we were both there fighting on that card (at UFC 225), I just trained at my manager’s gym because it’s more comfortable there. Typically, I would stay in the host hotel with everyone else. But it’s not anywhere close to where the hotel was — it was a significant jaunt away. So I’m there working out and Colby comes in, because he has to find somewhere as far away from UFC fighters as he can get to train, not knowing that it’s owned by one of the managers of some of the guys in the UFC. And then he gets there and he’s the most skittish person I’ve ever seen,” Smith said.

“He looks like a scared cat when he’s not around all the cameras — and I understand what he’s doing, I get it, but he’s put himself in a position where he can’t just be a normal person in normal places anymore because he’s pissed everybody off. So, he has to hide off in the corner of the gym the whole time and keep looking over his shoulder because he doesn’t know who wants to come in and slap him in the back of the head, and that’s how he is away from the cameras and everyone else. And that’s my only issue, is that he’s just attacking people who are not in his way. It’d be like me attacking ‘55ers. Like, what’s the point of that? I don’t understand how that puts you forward in your career anymore.”

Even the biggest Covington fans, and or, supporters of his controversial actions, have to concede that Smith’s likely right here, in terms of “Chaos” having to avoid fighters now. Especially since Covington has been doing the over-the-top, trash-talking bit now for quite some time.

While it remains to be seen who Covington fights next, Smith is set to face light-heavyweight champ Jon Jones at UFC 235, March 2nd.

Mentioned in this article:

More About: