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Anthony Smith beloved what he noticed out of Luke Rockhold in his post-fight speech at UFC 278.
Rockhold (16-6 MMA, 6-5 UFC) lost an entertaining bout to Paulo Costa this previous Saturday in Salt Lake Metropolis and decided to retire after the hard-fought battle. An emotional Rockhold was dropped at tears – a distinction from his brash perspective throughout battle week through which he trash-talked Costa and took aim at the UFC over fighter pay.
“I’ve been via a lot the previous couple of years,” Rockhold stated. “I f*cking … thanks, preventing. Thanks, UFC. Thanks, Joe (Rogan). I f*cking can’t do that sh*t anymore. I gave it my all. I simply didn’t … I’m f*cking previous.”
Smith, who’s had issues with Rockhold up to now, wonders the place this model of the previous champion was all alongside, a model he thinks would have resonated with followers.
“It was uncooked. It was so uncooked,” Smith advised Michael Bisping on the “Believe You Me” podcast. “The place was this f*cking man 10 years in the past? He’d be a f*cking celebrity. I can get behind that man. That man who’s like, ‘I’m f*cking previous,’ I’m with you. I can get behind that man.”
Rockhold was visibly exhausted all through his back-and-forth struggle with Costa. It was his first battle in additional than three years, and he took some heavy injury from the Brazilian powerhouse. Nevertheless, Rockhold was capable of go the space for the primary time in a loss, and Smith lauds him for the guts he confirmed.
“I see Luke Rockhold quitting, I’m watching him search for the door,” Smith stated. “He’s in search of a approach out after which determined to not take it, and that occurred greater than twice. It occurred greater than thrice the place he determined I don’t f*cking need to be right here anymore and on his strategy to quitting, circled earlier than he obtained there and battled his approach again into it. Personally, Luke and I don’t like one another.
“However I can respect being exhausted, being in a very onerous battle with a very heavy hitter, with a man who’s strolling you down, and also you’re so f*cking drained you’ll be able to’t even breathe, and you bought your nostril splashed all the way in which throughout your face, you’ll be able to barely rise up however nonetheless mustering the power to battle again and keep in there and type of give the followers a deal with they didn’t deserve, since you ought to have been completed a very long time in the past.”
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