Anthony Smith Expects To Finish Glover Teixeira At UFC Lincoln
Anthony Smith expects to earn a stoppage win over Glover Teixeira in the main event of UFC Lincoln.
Smith will get a hometown fight in Nebraska after speculation was the fight would happen in Brazil. For “Lionheart” he’s eager for the fight and to fight a guy like Teixeira who he respects.
“Yeah, I love it, man,” he recently told MMA Junkie. “I’m more happy with the location, for sure. But I’m happy to bring a guy like Glover Teixeira to Lincoln. There’s no trash talk; we have a lot of respect for each other. He’s not going to come in and trash my state. He’ll obviously be in hostile territory, but he’ll get a warm welcome. Nebraska people are respectful, and they’re obviously going to be cheering for me, but I don’t think anybody’s going to treat him badly. I’m excited for it.”
Smith says the lead up to the fight will not be full of trash-talking as the two respect each other and have even shared a beer together. Yet, when the Octagon door closes, he knows they will be trying to knock one another out.
“He’s one of the good guys in this sport and, especially these days, I think some of those guys are a dying breed,” he said. “He’s just always been nothing but respectful to me. He helped me out a lot in Brazil. Any time we see each other, it’s an embrace, it’s a handshake and a hug. The last time I saw Glover, we had a beer together, so there’s no beef there.
“We’re both extremely high-level competitors. I know he’s competitive and he’s super-powerful and dangerous, so you can’t be too wrapped up in how nice a guy he is, because he’s going to go out there and try to take my head off, for sure.”
In the end, Anthony Smith is confident he’ll his hand raised and eyes a fourth-round stoppage win.
“I think it’ll be a third or fourth-round finish,” Smith said. “I’m not sure if it’ll be a knockout or a submission, but I think that eventually, he’ll get frustrated and he’ll have to start taking bad shots. Whether I can take advantage of that with a submission or a knockout, I’m not sure. It’ll take me a little while.
“Glover’s a tough dude, he’s crafty, he’s been around a long time. It’s going to take a while to break a guy like that down and mentally, he’s hard to break. I do believe I’ll finish Glover, though.”
Do you think Anthony Smith will be able to finish Glover Teixeira at UFC Lincoln?
