Here’s a question that seemed to animate the internet during Saturday’s UFC Kansas City event: Did Anthony Smith have a great MMA career?
If his preemptive retirement announcement can be believed (and in this sport, that’s always a sizable if), Saturday’s first-round knockout loss to Zhang Mingyang officially closed the book on Smith’s fighting career. It ends with 60 professional fights, 38 wins and 22 losses, according to the official record.
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It also ended with a glowing sendoff from the UFC, which put together a tribute video fit for a legend or at least a former champion.
Smith isn’t either of those things. He had a solid UFC tenure, going 13-12 over the course of about nine years with the promotion. He posted losses in most of the fights he had against big-name opponents, including his lone UFC title shot against Jon Jones. His biggest wins — I’d argue those were Alexander Gustafsson, Rashad Evans and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua — came against opponents on the downslope of their careers. In other words, those fighters were to his rise what he was to Zhang’s over the weekend. So it goes (and has always gone) in fight sports.
Point is, Smith had a career that was remarkable more for its longevity and resiliency than for any specific accomplishments. He’s notable for being a guy who had a ton of fights before coming to the UFC, and for bouncing back from an early stretch that saw him at one point lose four straight on the regional circuit. His toughness is beyond question. We found that out when we watched him pick his own teeth up off the mat in the middle of a fight with Glover Teixeira — and then keep on going.
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But did he have a great career? Not in any way that shows up on the stat sheet, no. But what the reception for his final fight showed us is that there are lots of ways to have a meaningful and memorable career in this sport, and it’s not all dependent on wins and losses.
A big part of the reason Smith got such a warm farewell (in addition to the fact that he has an ongoing working relationship with the UFC on the broadcasting side of things) is because of the way he managed to connect with people. Between commentary gigs, radio shows and podcasts, it feels like he’s always talking into one microphone or another. That makes him feel like he’s very much in the fandom, rather than just another fighter who shows up on television every few months and then disappears once the ESPN+ stream shuts off.
He’s also been open about all the things he’s gone through over the years, from a home invasion burglary to the sudden death of a longtime coach to the mental struggles that come with losing and aging in an unforgiving sport. In a way, it helped that Smith wasn’t ever some amazing athlete towering over his peers. He came off more as a regular guy who overachieved just because he never quit.
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That right there makes for a pretty good career. It doesn’t put him up there with the great ones who won and defended titles, but it does stamp him into the sport’s collective memory as a guy who made us care about why he was out there bleeding on television a few times per year. You can do a lot worse than that. Most professional fighters do.
The truth is this sport needs all kinds of different figures. It can’t just be legends and losers. There’s room for a lot in between, and some of our favorites have been people who didn’t come close to winning them all but still made an impact. You don’t have to think a fighter was one of the all-time greats in order to think he deserves a chance to be cheered and celebrated once he’s finally had enough. When a guy has paid in blood and teeth for his time in this sport, he at least deserves that much.
