1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Anthony "Lionheart" Smith- Sparring Partners: August 20th, 11:25am

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Anthony "Lionheart" Smith- Sparring PartnersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to one-on-one with DP. Brought you by Canopy Street Market. On 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Oh, man. Welcome back one-on-one. The journey continues. Anthony Line Hartsmith joins us from the text line. Hey, Bach, we have a read that we need to get in as well.

That's okay. We'll get it in the next sec. We'll get it at the top of the next time. But from the text line. Hammond B says this. He says, can you give us a little Joe Ellenberger's story if you know? I love a good Joe Ellenberger's story.

I don't know that I have any like really, really fun. Well, I'm actually going to be sitting down with him soon. But, you know, actually Joe and Jake were kind of essential parts in my, in my growth through this entire journey that I ended up on. Because in like Nebraska, we don't like we don't have these big super gyms and huge names. And so you don't.

actually ever really know where you are until you get into these bigger super gems or these big names, and rooms, and then you can kind of gauge yourself. But I had no, I had no, like, way into any of those places. I can't, like, especially back then, now it's different. But back then, you couldn't just show up at a Greg Jackson's and they'd just let you train. You couldn't just show up at American Top Team and they would let you train. But Jake had already, you know, he'd gotten in early. He'd beaten Pelea pretty early. He'd been in Bellator. And so he was a pretty big name and you know joe was wrestling and then you know started fighting and he you know they end up both signed to the ufc but this is before joe got signed and jake was on his on his kind of

i guess getting close to a title run you know he never ended up getting one but he got got really close um and he was living in orange county and so every single time he would take a fight joe would go out and he would spend a lot of time with jake and then they would go fight so well i was training with Joe all the time in Omaha. So then Joe said, you want to come to Orange County. And I said, yeah, of course. So they take me. I had a fight coming up and strike force. And so they took me, you know, they kind of took me into their wing and allowed me into these rooms that I wouldn't ever have been allowed in before. So I ended up at the rain training center. That's where I first met Chale P. Sunning. That's where I met Michael Bisbing. That's where I met, you know, Maham Miller was there.

You know, just the list of names goes on and on and on. And then, we end up at Kings, and that's where I met Hoffield Cordero and Babelieu and Jacaray. And so I was able to train in all these places that was kind of built in credibility already. I was trusted already. You said a couple of things in that. One, that the trust level and the liability level matter, because you can't just take Joe off the street. Because one, you don't know. He doesn't know.

Right. You don't know. And the second part of it is that the cross training. of styles of fighters and having a place where you can get work on not only the thing that you're good at, but the thing that you're not good at. And I need to ask which one determines your place in the UFC? Your ability to manifest what you're really good at or your ability to protect the thing you're not good at. I think they're equally as important.

Personally, I think protecting your liabilities are probably most important. hiding your deficiencies and then just being as good as you can where you're already good but i think you have to be able to hide your deficiencies yeah i mean i got a good joy on leger yes that same trip um joe is is is like a coach at heart he really is he was an incredible athlete obviously he's a you know national champion of carney you know incredible ufc fighter um great jiu jitsu guy but he i think he's a better coach and mentor than anything so uh we're training we go the Kings and I believe I'm not a hundred percent sure because now looking back at it might have been Khalil roundtree but vanderlay had a gym in Vegas uh Fabricio verdum had a strike force

fight coming up and he's big dude and he needs big training partners that are good so van der Le set up some guy from Vegas that was supposed to be really good to train with verdum it's a sparring day and so for anyone that's never heard about anything that happens at king sparring days are pretty much fight days it's 30 guys fist fighting for two hours so in this this is in nowadays people are a little more safer around sparring it's we're protecting our brains a lot more but back then it was full-on fights so verdon is sparring this big huge jacked black guy and looking back in it now it might have been calil years and years and years ago but um anyways the guy throws these huge head kicks and there's boom boom right it right at verdum's head verdon's head

Vardum is blocking him. But you can tell he's getting angry because this guy's going, which is weird because everybody's fighting, but Verdum was offended that the guy was trying to win. So Verdoom, Maita clenches him and just buries two knees into his face in practice. That's not something we typically would do in training. But he just buries them with knees. And this guy, he's got blood cut under his eye or under his cheek on his cheekbone. He's got blood come out of his nose.

His nose is shattered. We're in the first round. And this is, and I remember thinking, oh, my God. What is happening here? What do we do? Well, I'm the next biggest guy. So this guy, this poor guy has to go sit on the floor. And Babelieu, who I had never met at this point, is on the sidelines with a broken hand.

Well, to me, this is the legend. This is the legendary Babelouserral. And he looks at me right in the eyes and goes, you, you're in. And Joe Ellenberger goes, okay, you got to get moving. You got to get moving. So I'm, you know, I'm flowing and I'm moving. I'm much faster. And I'm, you know, I'm kind of touching him a little bit.

but I'm like afraid to really, because I just seen what he did to this guy. Right. And I hit like a nasty angle and I had a broad. I could have just slept for him. And I didn't. I just pulled it and then I just kept moving. And Babaloo stopped the entire practice because he didn't know who I was.

He thought it was just a random guy. Yeah. Stops the entire practice screaming in my face. And essentially says if you have a chance, and I remember these two are really good friends. They grew up together, both from Brazil or tight. he's there coaching for doom tells me if I have an opportunity to knock him out I need to put him out right there we don't pull punches he needs to know that that shot was there you need to put him out

so I'm just like maybe I'm uncomfortable so then it happens again I'm used to not trying to knock out my training partner so it happens again and then Bob Blue freaks out well Joe Lindberger comes and you know essentially says that's my guy back off of my guy and then Bobaloo the whole thing switched was like oh well how are you my name was Bob Blue the The cosign. Come on, man. The cosign saved my life. Oh, man.

Not that I didn't still continue to fight for my life for another hour with Rabinio, Virgil Verdon. But there are no real consistencies in when you're sparring at different points. If you go, you know, if you go to top, there are rules of engagement. For sure. If you go to the black zillions, it's a different, one, a different expectation. It depends on who you are too. So if I go to, just say right now,

if I go to any super gym in the country, if I end up, I just had one of these situations with, during my last training camp with Paula Costa, you're going to have guys that are going to come at you because they're one, I'm on TV. I've probably talked about you. I probably said some stuff you didn't like.

And I tell the guys all the time, if you stick around long enough, you'll, you'll run into me in a gym somewhere and you can, there's an opportunity. for you to, we can have a conversation. Yeah, yeah, get even. Yeah, I mean, if you want to make me answer for it, you're more than welcome to try.

And that was kind of the Paulo Costa situation. But usually what comes out of that is I'm not the guy that they think that I am. Like the guy on the radio and the TV with my suit all buttoned up and looking all nice, there's a different guy that's in the gym when we put the gloves on. So, but I would say most times if you get another big name guy who's been around a long time, he's a veteran,

usually those are pretty fun. They're very playful. It's a lot of touch. barring, we're not really trying to kill each other. It's the young guys. They got something. Take their shot. Take their shot. And I love that. Take their shot. Right. And that was a, but that was a part of your profile.

It was that Dana kept matching you with young guys who, who had, who thought, hey, let me take care of the old line. Let me do that. And you totally bought it. Said, you know what? Yeah. Come on. It just, I saw that it was. I forget what Friday was, but somebody had, I'm like six and one with young guys. Yeah. They took a young guy. They took the young guy all, but the last one, right?

You know, the last one is the one. You kind of go, here's what happened at 319. That, and people went back and forth on whether it was a spinning back fist or spinning elbow. But then the discussion immediately went to, first of all, you rarely see them on a big card and two to see back to back. Right. And to say immediately that it's really hard to defend that because you rail and sparring. You can't, it's hard to do. You can't do it.

You don't see it. Right. So what, how does that work? If you threw a spinning elbow and practice, the team would jump you. Right. Especially if it landed, you'd get thrown through the front window because it's so dangerous. It's really, it's less about the knockout part of it. Not too many people get knocked out with spinning attacks.

Yeah. You know what happens a lot of spending attacks? Cuts. Yeah. Cuts. Yeah. Like I've been cut in practice before with, you know, just random stuff. And it is what it is. It sucks. But if someone intentionally throw something stupid like that and then you get cut, it's pretty much the responsibility of the team to take care of that. Is that the line for unprofessionalism that that did you would,

that somebody you're sparring with? We can't break your toys. Like you need your friends and training partners to help you continue to get better. So if if someone throws a spinning attack at me, well, now there's three guys that I'm, and I'm cut and I'm out for a week, well, there's three guys that I've been helping that need to be ready in two weeks

that now just lost a week of training with me because I'm out with the cut. Like you, you, we go hard and you have to push each other and you have to do things that are uncomfortable, but we're not trying to intentionally hurt each other. That's just a byproduct. We have these conversations all time about Huskers football. And that, you know, the number of full, full contact take them to the ground days and why it's

restricted. Yeah. I mean, you got to have it, though. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to ask is it how important is it to know what your 100% looks and feels like currently? Yeah. Different people do it different ways.

But I have a hard time doing that with my main training partners, like my regular guys. Because I feel too bad. And we know each other so well that it seems a bit unfair. Like I know where you're not very good at. So for me to take advantage of that would make me a bad friend. Well, in football, I mean, just think about it. They're going to training camp and you're preparing. Well, that's why they train with other teams like in training camp.

Well, but Nebraska's stuck, right? They're stuck. They got the 105 and they got practice squad guys. Right. They know the practice squad guys. And they, you know, they're with them. And hey, man, I might need to put you through through the, through the ground a couple of times in order for me to feel good about myself for sure for Cincinnati.

And that's tough. That's tough. That's so tough. What I've always done is I just, we just hire training partners towards the last, like the last three weeks because what is higher guys that I don't know and don't care about? And then I don't feel bad because they're being paid. So like you're here for a paycheck. You know what this is. What's the pay? What's the sparring pay? It just depends how good they are. Right. Yeah. I mean, if they're really good, I mean, I'll pay you $1,000 a week. And then based and then depending on who your, your opponent is. It depends on who my opponent is. You may want somebody that specializes in

But I need to find someone that's similar to them, whether it's body type or style. And in this game, it's different boxers to get a whole lot more because they're brought in just to get just to beat them up. What we'll do is, well, I'll fly you in. I'll get you a rental car. I'll put you up in a house. You already don't have a job. And maybe you have a fight coming up. So now you're just going to train with me.

I'll pay you $1,000, $2,000 a week. Which is big money for. And now you get an entire, you also get to train. all week. So now you're with this incredible team. My coaches are going to give you, private lessons. They're going to help you with your game. On Friday, we're not friends. Because I'm, I'm going to get at you on Friday. But the rest of the week, we're just drilling partners. We'll roll hard. We'll train hard. But like just on, on Friday, you're going to get it. I'm going to let you have it. But Monday through Monday through Thursday, it's all good.

If Anthony calls you on a Friday, don't answer. Like, you know, hey, Bach, I need somebody. No, man. You can get me on Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, Monday through Thursday, you're safe. We'll try to break. Friday, I won't even talk to you when he walked in the day. Anthony's telling you know, y'all. Don't listen.

Don't answer your phone on Friday. We'll go to break more on one on when we come back. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937, the ticket and the ticketfm.com.