Anthony Smith Explains Why He is Favored over Shogun Rua

If you’re wondering if Anthony Smith gave any pause before agreeing to fight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in Hamburg this weekend, wonder no more. It’s not that Antonio Smith takes pride in being a throwback fighter who is willing to take on anyone anytime, it’s that it just comes naturally to “Lionheart”:

“It’s kind of the cliché saying, “I’ll fight anyone, any time, any place…” but I really mean it when I say it,” Smith said in an appearance on MMA Junkie Radio. “And the names don’t matter to me. My manager called me not with a question, will I fight Shogun. It was, ‘You’re fighting Shogun in three weeks in Germany.’ And I said, cool, send the contract.

That’s how my brain works. That’s how I manage. That’s how I do it. It doesn’t matter to me. I literally don’t care. You could send a blank contract over, and I’ll sign it. It could be a surprise. It doesn’t matter to me.

The name literally doesn’t matter. He could have said it’s Brock Lesnar, and I would have had the same reaction and hung the phone up. It doesn’t matter to me.”

What does matter to Smith is winning and ascending up the rankings of his new home: the light heavyweight division. And while it came to him as a surprise that he was the favorite over a familiar name in that division, Shogun Rua, he believes it makes perfect sense with all things considered:

“It is a little bit surprising that I’m the favorite. I think that the finish over Rashad probably had a lot to do with that. And Shogun’s been pretty inactive. I think the last time he fought will be a year and four months or something like that.

“So yeah, I think that probably has a lot to do with it. But at the end of the day, none of that shit really matters. I don’t think that Shogun thinks that it matters, either. But as far as my fight style, it’s really easy to look at my losses and kind of dismiss me and stuff like that. But if you really dig into it, I’ve actually only been knocked out one time. And a lot of those stoppages were really, really early in my career. I was in my early 20s. I think a couple of them I might have even been 19 years old.

“So yeah, I took a lot of tough fights really early on, and I’ve been on a four-fight losing streak twice. As of recently, I think that if you looked at my recent career, I think it’d be hard to make the argument that I shouldn’t be the favorite over Shogun. I’ve been much more active, and I think I’ve been in some pretty tough fights.

I think I’m the perfect matchup for Shogun and for the fans. I think it’s gonna be an exciting fight.”

And if Shogun pushes forward as Smith noted the legend is accustomed to do, Smith believes things could get very interesting for spectators:

“If you meet Shogun in the middle, it’s gonna be two bulls running into each other, and we’re gonna figure out which one’s bigger,” Smith said. “And I’m OK with that. I think Shogun is, too.”

After knocking out and retiring Rashad Evans, Smith has a message to Shogun that his time in the limelight is also about to fade to black as long as he is in the picture:

“I feel like it’s my time, and I’m on. And everything’s firing on all cylinders right now. And I think it’s my turn. Shogun had his time.”