One that Smith will do everything to avoid, not just for the sake of the fans but for his own, and while the 34-year-old has always been a confident fighter, he looks even more sure of victory this time.
“He (Ankalaev) doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, but that’s because he doesn’t do enough to give himself the chance to make a lot of mistakes,” Smith said of his opponent. “He does a very good job when he fights inside the box. He’s got a box that he likes to stay in, he doesn’t like to get out of it, and I think the few times people have taken him out of the box, he freaks out to go back in, and that’s when I gonna grab it. I’m an instinctive fighter, I catch people in transitions, I fight very well in the gray zone, I perform very well under fire, and he doesn’t. He wants to put out the fires, and my job is to keep them going. (Laughs) And the bulk of my work is going to make him uncomfortable and force him to fight. It’s not Jon Jones. Jon Jones does a really good job of avoiding fights, and Ankalaev is not that guy. He is not. And that’s my plan – just to create chaos and earn every little transition into a gray area.
UFC 277 INTEGRATED: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5
Bold words, especially when talking about a fighter who could be 18-0 right now if not for a literal last-second loss to Paul Craig in his UFC debut in 2018. But Smith does not yet name Ankalaev the next champion. He keeps that title to himself, and if he needs to make a statement against the Russian star to do so, so be it.
“To be fair, I’m probably the first one who doesn’t care who he is,” Smith said. “We can talk about his eight-fight winning streak all we want, but if I fought some of the people he was fighting, I’d be on an eight-fight winning streak as well. I’ve been at the top of the division since 2018, since I was at 205. My second fight was a Top Ten guy. I don’t fight your (Nikita) Krylovs and your (Ion) Cutelabas. I know some people consider them good wins, but I would love a Krylov-Cutelaba hat-trick; that would be great.”