Over the weekend, Anthony Smith defeated Alexander Gustafsson at UFC Fight Night 153 which led to the Swedish fighter's retirement from the UFC. Despite the big win, Smith actually broke his hand in the fight and will need four months to recover. The break happened in the second round, with Smith coming back to win by submission in the fourth. It was a pretty great fight and now, just a few days later after suffering his injury, Smith opened up to TMZ Sports about his mentality throughout the whole ordeal.
"I definitely felt the break and it hurt, but as the fight went on it got worse for sure," Smith explained. "Honestly man, here's my mentality. I'm here, I'm here, let's just fight. I don't want any regrets. I don't want to wonder, ah, maybe I coulda pushed it or whatever. I just go do it. I told [my coach] Mark, he said, 'how are you feeling?' I said, 'my hands broken.' He said, 'alright we're gonna start throwing elbows.' And I said, 'Nah, I'll just keep throwing it."'
The fighter was also motivated by the prospect of going on vacation after the fight as he just wanted to go home thanks to the pain. For Smith, losing wasn't an option so he just kept going.
"I know this sounds silly. But I remember sitting down in between rounds. My hand was broken. We're going into the 4th. I just kept thinking, man, I just wanna go home and go camping," Smith said.
Now that Smith has four months off, it's a safe bet that he'll be camping very soon.