It appears Anthony Smith nonetheless hasn’t forgotten that promo Ryan Spann reduce heading into their 2021 Battle Evening primary occasion. Making an attempt to channel Rorschach’s line from the watchem about Smith being “locked in right here with me,” Spann was rapidly made to eat his phrases when the 2 males stepped within the cage on combat evening, with Smith choosing up the primary spherical submission.
‘Lionheart’ has been out of motion for the final a number of months, coping with an ankle damage, knee surgical procedures, and a number of infections, however it doesn’t appear the prolonged time using the bench has dulled his aggressive instincts in any respect.
Coming off an enormous win over Dominick Reyes at UFC 281, Spann issued a callout to the highest 5 of the sunshine heavyweight division. Most particularly, for his likelihood to combat at UFC gold. In a current look on Michael Bisping’s Consider You Me podcast, Smith took a second to remind Spann to ‘test the document.’
“I don’t know what occurred in our combat that left him with any type of confidence that he can nonetheless beat me or that he deserves a rematch,” Smith mentioned (transcript through MMA Mania). “I had him on ice skates till he was capturing takedowns, I strangled him, after which stood over his physique, reminding him what he was going to do to me. So, he’s my b—ch perpetually and he is aware of it.”
Whereas Smith has denied any curiosity in re-matching Spann prior to now, this time round he did sound a bit of extra open to the concept—supplied, in fact, that Spann works his means as much as it.
“Finally, he may go himself right into a state of affairs the place we’re gonna rematch, however I already fought down once I gave him a chance,” Smith continued. “Till he does one thing the place I am going, ‘Oh, wow. That was tremendous spectacular,’ he can f—okay off. Him being an asshole didn’t work out for him the final time. He barely dealt with the primary combat, how’s he gonna deal with the second?”
Though no combat announcement has been made, Smith has said that he’s able to return to motion and expects his subsequent bout to be made public quickly. Most just lately, the Manufacturing unit X expertise suffered a TKO loss to Magomed Ankalaev, again in July at UFC 277. That combat broke a streak of three-straight victories for the 34-year-old.
