Anthony Smith is confident that, if he were healthy, he could be getting a rematch against Jon Jones immediately.
The two fought back at UFC 235. Jones won the fight by unanimous decision. Since then, “Lionheart” has submitted Alexander Gustafsson, while “Bones” beat Thiago Santos.
At present, there aren’t any clear contenders for Jon Jones to fight next. Smith thinks he could conceivably fill that void.
“I really haven’t thought about it, too much. I’ve just been trying to stay positive with this recovery. I took a step back from the fight game as a whole,” Smith told BJPENN.com. “I just haven’t been obsessing over it. But, if I was healthy, I think I could get that title shot right now. There is a reason why other people haven’t gotten it.”
Anthony Smith is dealing with a nagging hand injury. After his first reparative surgery failed, he had to have a second one, which will keep him out of the Octagon for the remainder of the year.
“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “I had to have another hand surgery. Really, I had to restart my recovery process two weeks ago. They had to re-do my hand surgery and remove the previous plate and put in a new one. At this point, it is not up to me. My hand is just not where it needs to be. We are looking at that January timeline.”
When Smith does return, he is eyeing a rematch against Jones. He believes he is better than how he performed in the first fight, and still believes he could dethrone the champ. Whether or not that is true is to be seen, but Anthony Smith at least wants another shot at it.
“Typically Jon tends to get better the second time he fights someone. He showed that in the Gustafsson and ‘DC’ fight as well. Both of us have 25-minutes of data on each other,” he explained. “I just didn’t show up and did the things I said I wasn’t going to do. That has never happened before but I got a lot more out of it than Jon did.
“Obviously, that fight looks a lot different the second time around and he keeps giving me more data,” Smith continued. “He gave me 25 more minutes against Thiago and that helps me because I fought them both. So, when I see Thiago do something I know what that feels like. To see Jon’s reaction or response is a big help to me. I get a lot of information from that.”
Do you think we’ll see a rematch between Jon Jones and Anthony Smith in the future?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/19/2019.