Some people conjure one thing from the shape of an octagon: a stop sign. For Anthony “Lionheart” Smith—the Omaha fighter with the sledgehammer hands, 4k ultra-HD smile, and the Jiu Jitsu belt that’s blacker than the collection of ink that wraps itself around his fast-moving arms—that shape with eight edges means something entirely different.
It means go—go fast, go hard.
Most importantly, it means go until the bell rings, until the finish; even if he’s knocked down and the breath in his lungs is waving that gasping white flag of carbon-dioxide-induced surrender.
“I put everything I have into my fights,” Smith said. “I always fight with the heart that Nebraskans can be proud of whether I win or lose.”
In the past six years, a span in which he has gone 15-5 and fought for championship belts in places as far away as Stockholm, Sweden, and as near as his home city of Omaha, he hasn’t done much of the latter. In spite of a sterling overall record in recent years, Smith finds himself with his back pressed firmly against the chain-link wall behind him. He’s lost two straight fights for the first time since joining the Ultimate Fighting Championships and is contemplating how to regain his old form.
“This one [the loss to Aleksandar Rakić on Aug. 29] is a tough pill to swallow,” Smith said. “I’ve never lost two in a row in the UFC and it hurts. But I’m no stranger to adversity.”
He’s right. A fighter can take down the Lionheart, but he’s going to get back up. An opponent can knock out his teeth, but he’s just going to hand them to the referee in the middle of the fight like he’s some kind of bloodied tooth-fairy’s apprentice, as Smith did on May 14 at a fight in Jacksonville, Florida.
Once spectators think he’s tapping out, when they think he’s finally finished, he rises from the shallow grave of an unfinished 10-count by the referee, like he’s some horror movie villain from a ’90s slasher film giving viewers one last jump scare.
That’s how he started fighting, after all. A fighter doesn’t earn a moniker as ferocious as his by chance.
“That’s essentially how my career started,” Smith said. “I wasn’t very good and would be losing most fights and my heart and determination always pulled me through and I would pull out wins late in the fight that were unexpected.”
It was in these early fights, these wild brawling nights when Smith learned how to channel his natural toughness into a true edge. That toughness was honed in his days as a young man in Nebraska City, where he wrestled and played football, but lacked the discipline he has since come to embrace as a black belt martial artist. He had his five fingers, and he was always willing to raise his hand when coaches asked, “Who wants to fight?” at the South Sokol Omaha Fight Club, but he needed to turn those fingers into a fist.
It was during this formative time in his career, about 10 years ago, when he first met his future boxing/MMA coach Danny Molina while both men were training at a gym together. Molina instantly recognized Smith’s talent, but more than that, he recognized an innate, instinctual headiness.
“Anthony had a really high fight IQ,” said Molina, referring to Smith’s ability to act intelligently in the cage and implement a game plan. “That’s a really important aspect of the fight game and our styles really meshed. There were things he really knew I could help him with, just the overall transition and striking at a high level.”
It didn’t take long for Molina to realize he’d found someone special. “I call him the ‘diamond in the rough’ because he’s both naturally gifted and hardworking,” Molina said. “The best thing about Anthony Smith is that he listens really well. Naturally, he’s just a gifted athlete. He’s got the athleticism, but he’s got that high IQ, and he just gets it. At the same time, he’s always willing to learn. Everything that I teach him, he has not been scared to use on a practical level.”
Since Molina has been there from the beginning, he’s determined to help Smith with his next round: taking that two-fight skid head on.
Smith and his team are doing some frank analysis while training at Mick Doyle’s Kickboxing in West Omaha, combing through the inches and moments and synapse-to-muscle firings that can make all the difference:
“[The losing streak] is very frustrating though,” Smith said. “[In the last fight] I just wasn’t able to do a lot of the things we had planned on. As a team we have a meeting planned across the board. We are going to have a big Zoom call and collectively figure out what changes need to be made and what direction we go as far as opponent and career trajectory and path back to title contention. It’s not a skill problem, it’s somewhere in the details.”
Those eight corners in the ring? Smith has more than enough people on his team to fill them all.
“When [UFC Event Announcer] Bruce Buffer screams, ‘Fighting out of Omaha, Nebraska,’ it is a very proud moment for me each and every time. I’m a proud Nebraskan and I make sure everyone knows it,” Smith said.
So, when he does come out, hands raised once more with fists at the ready, take a close look at the ink indelibly scrawled across his battle-scarred knuckles. They’ll do the talking. Right hand: fear. Left hand: none.
Visit ufc.com/athlete/anthony-smith for more information.
This article first appeared in the November/December 2020 issue of Omaha Magazine. Click here to subscribe to the print edition.
