1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Dana White and Terrence "Bud" Crawford: August 1st, 12:25pm

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Dana White and Terrence "Bud" CrawfordAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome back. Anthony Linehart-Smith in the building. Bach, let him know who makes this happen. Howard 2 today is sponsored by Shweezzo's Construction, where safety isn't just a policy, it's a promise. Shuisos is hiring skilled craftsmen, laborers, concrete workers, and steel erectors who value quality work

and a team that has your back on and off the job site. Applied today at shizos.com. 40 years strong in business, Shuiso Construction. Kind, sir, I asked the question and there's certain spaces that the events,

the places, the venues that hold the event have a personality. And then the crowds in different cities. They're just different crowds. The UFC has done an amazing, amazing job. I once heard Dana White say that I pay people to make weight because if I'm going to, if I'm going to invite people from all over the world to watch them fight, they better make weight. Like I can't have them. And he said, that's the top of the list for me. Like he goes, I pay them to make weight and then I pay them to fight for their next payday. That their next, their performance tonight will determine whether I hire them again. Right. Right. So. Dana Dana's

give folks who've never met Dana White and had the pleasure of being in his presence he's just a different guy

it's different it has a different vibe about him um you know as as inundated as I am in the UFC I don't have

that many interactions with Dana he called me Dana and I have been on two phone conversations twice or three times I take that back three times once

he called me after the Glover fight the next day to make sure I was okay. He called me one time I reached out to Hunter and Dana called me and we talked about something kind of personal. Had a lot to do with Diego Sanchez during that whole kind of disaster. Actually, you know what? I'm going to tell the story. Please. I'm going to tell the story.

Only because this will give you a good view into who Dana really is. So as any fight fan would know, Diego Sanchez had this period in his life where he was wrapped up with this crazy person who just ruined his career, essentially, and ended up becoming the reason that he retired and the UFC wouldn't use him anymore. An absolute legend, UFC Hall of Famer,

entire career ruined by one person. And so Diego was kind of outside of himself, he was just losing his mind, and so I interviewed Diego on an old YouTube channel that I had. and it was the first time that Diego had been by himself, not with this person in like a year and a half. And so when I got him on, he went absolutely insane.

And the deal was, when I reached out to Diego, his deal for him to do it was I couldn't edit it and I had to post it in its entirety. And I said, yeah, that's fine. So he comes on, spends about 30 minutes losing it. Scorched earth. Scorched earth talking about he thinks the UFC. is got people out there were going to kill him and that Dana,

he had all these secrets on Dana that he was going to release soon. If Dana didn't fix this, he just went absolutely insane. So I reached out to the UFC because now I got a problem. Because I'm still an active fighter. I still work on the broadcasting side or work on ESPN, but I made a deal. I made a deal with Diego,

another fighter, another athlete that I supremely respect. So now I don't know what to do. Because I don't want to put this out. people go crazy, you know, but I have to because I said I would. So I reached out to Hunter and then Dana calls me immediately. So I tell Dana the exact same thing I just told you. Like that's not what I was expecting. So this is what I got.

And I was very honest. And maybe this isn't my, this isn't the most journalistic integrity thing in the world. But if I'm being honest, I'm not a journalist. I'm just a fighter who has a mic in front of him. I told Dana, if you want me to kill it, I'll just kill it. Like here's what he said. It sounds like it's a bunch of BS and he's off his rocker, but I'll kill it and just, I just won't put it out.

And you know what Dana said to me? He said, no, it's fine. Put it out. And I said, are you sure? He said this and he said this. And he said, first of all, Diego doesn't have anything on me because there is nothing to have on me. Number two, maybe the rest of the world, Anthony, needs to hear where Diego Sanchez is so that we can find some way to get him away from that guy to help him.

when that this is a direct quote when that guy takes everything the Diego has all of his money all of his relationships and he leaves Diego for dead on the side of the road I'll still be there and I'll come pick Diego up and I'll help him so he knew exactly what was coming out knew the allegations that Diego made and still loved him and said when that guy burns him takes all of his money and leaves him on the road for dead I'll come back to Diego and I'll fix it and I'll help him. You haven't heard Diego say a word. And that exact thing happened. That guy took every dollar Diego Sanchez ever made his entire career, burned him, sued him, made him sign all these weird things, and left him for dead on the side of the road. And who was there to pick up the

pieces? Dana way. Dana is exactly what you guys, whatever you think he is, he's that and better. Maybe you don't align with him politically. Maybe you don't align with some of the things that he says personally in terms of his takes. You hear fighters, they complain about their pay and all of this stuff. I've never asked for something and not gotten it. But I'm also reasonable. I'm also a person who makes sure that I don't already deserve what I'm asking for. So some of that comes down to your own insecurities and who you are as a person.

And he's rational. There's been times I've asked for some crazy stuff. and he'll ask the same question. I know he does it to everybody else. Why? Why do you want that or why do you think that you deserve that? And I'll just break it down. And I was given.

I did this and I did this and I beat this person. I went here and I did this for you. I was a company guy here. I've never said a negative thing about the company, even when I wanted to at times, which is you can say the same thing in your marriage. You can say same thing. Part of the deal.

Any place you work, you're always going to end up in a spot where you want to say something negative. Yep. And if it's a rational explanation, I'll say, okay, cool. Here's what I know about, and I tell Bok this, speak about what you know, speak about what you know,

and ask about what you don't know. And a big part for me is that I'm this reporter from Lincoln, Nebraska, right, from this, I'm not part of the corporate chain of radio, I'm not from one of the big broadcast house of that sort of thing. this isn't a UFC hub by any stretch of the imagination but I made a commitment that I was going to talk about Nebraska I was going to be there for Nebraska fighters

and I was going to bring those conversations to Lincoln, Nebraska and Dana White said yes Dana White has again whenever he sees me it is a hand press as you said we don't have to agree on a lot of things but what he allows is for presence listen, you're going to honor this because it's good. If we're good, if I invite you to my house and I have a good house, you're going to go tell people it's a good house.

Right. I can't worry about the people, if you don't like the people who are in the house or all the, is it a good house and was my invitation to you authentic? That's how I saw Dana White. For sure. And that's in the space. Some of the buildings, the apex is different. It is.

Because the performance center has its own. energy and it's the house of the ultimate fight like it's kind of the core of that but there are some buildings around the world that you fought in and you've broadcasted in what are the ones that what what's your favorite place when you talk about attending or fighting in covering an event because the fans are special where where is it Vegas is so i i'm really bad with the names of the arenas no i don't know why they just never stick with me right uh the globe in stockholm sweden was probably my favorite place to fight. Could be because I beat Alexander Gustafsson in his hometown.

That may have had something to do with it. But the arena itself is a perfect circle. So it kind of looks like the sphere without all the, you know, without all the, you know, sphere stuff. The sphere stuff was crazy. But the arena on the inside, like the seats kind of follow the contour of the building, kind of like the sphere does. Yeah.

But it's an older, an older arena. And it was just so loud. I don't know what it is with the acoustics in that building and the shape and the way that it is. I've never heard anything that loud. I've never been booed that loud. I couldn't believe it. I remember walking out looking around. Oh, my God.

This is insane. The arena that I fought in in Singapore was really cool. I thought the Singapore trip was very, it was a hard trip. um i was kind of like an abdhabi type of type of flight i always worry about those like those are hard right how long's the flight to abdabat i like what's 18 hours 18 hours and that's tough if you're just calling the fight that's straight that's one flight that's not total flight time that's one flight 18 hours. Do you take like

masseuses with you? Do you take? I never fought in Abu Dhabi. But the Singapore flight was like 14 and a half. So what do you do? You're about to compete. I go in like a G, dude.

I go in a day late. Everyone comes two weeks early. I go in a day late. I show up. I stay on American time. I sleep when I'm tired. I'm awake. When I'm awake.

Cut the weight and fight. Everyone makes things so complicated. I got to be there for a month. I got to get my. my sleep cycle on with the, with, you know, with this piece of grass that's outside. We're overthinking it. Toast to the grass.

We got, it's a fist fight. It's a fist fight on a Saturday night. I've never, I've never once had a referee look at me and say, are you ready? And then look over me, say, are you ready?

And me thought, ah. Not really. Man, I'm a bit jet lag. You know, I'm kind of a little bit sore from long, no, you're going to fight when it's time to fight. How do you handle diet then? Like, what do you do? You're trusting.

Oh, that's none of my business. Right. You do really don't worry. You let your nutritionist. My nutritionist does it all. Just tell you what you're eating. Me and Terrence Crawford got the same one. We share them.

Not a shocker by that. Yeah, we at all. We share them. Are you going to the fight? I'm working on it. Yeah. I'm working on it. I'm trying to, I got, it's not the fight that's the problem.

It's my schedule here. So I got some things again. I'm trying to move around. But my plan is to be there. Yeah. I need to look. Let me look. Because I thought that the UFC had kind of,

made a point not to fight that it's the 23rd, right? I think it's the same. I think the UFC is the event the same day. Oh, is that is that the one in Australia? What, Bach, what's the fight date for Crawford? It is in triple G. Thank. Canelo. So, because you'll be, uh, the UFC would be in San Antonio the 13th. I'll be in San Antonio. Uh, they will be in Paris,

France, September 6th. I will not be in Paris. Uh, there's a off week, the 20th. And then, the 27th, they'll be in Perth, Australia. What days the Crawford's fight? September 13th. So the same time is San Antonio. Yeah, I'll be in San Antonio. Yeah.

Because that's Noce. And actually, I'm... That's the noce event. That's actually the one I'm supposed to go to. Noce? I'm supposed to go to Noce at the Frostbank. Listen, man, me just hang out in San Antonio. We'll watch it.

We're going to have to do it. Like, I, you know, apologize. I want to go there. I want to be there. Terrence has been a huge supporter of me. How do you think that goes? man I've never bet against Terrence that I'm not going to start now hey man I'm not going to start now that guy can one time I was back in the day when I first started training in Colorado

Terrence was as he is now still doing his training camps in Colorado Springs and I was doing mine in Denver so I used to have an off day on Wednesdays which was Terrence's hard day so I would every once in a while I drive I would drive to Colorado Springs his Terrence's best friend is an MMA guy. So, and he's like my size, so we were training partners a little bit. So I'd go up there on Wednesdays and just kind of hang out and kick it with those guys. And watching Terrence Train is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen in my whole life.

First of all, he's the most ambidextrous fighter on planet Earth. I don't care who you guys think of. There's no one that can fight in their opposite stance exactly the way they do in their other stance. Like, there's no one on planet earth. earth they can do it like Terrence does. He runs the entire practice orthodox. Then they get to the end of the practice,

finishes it. And they re-rack it, restart, pulling the Southpaw coaches, and does it as a Southpaw. He wraps his own hands. There's another fun fact for you. Before he fights, Terence Crawford wraps his own hands,

takes them about four minutes. It's so bad. I just think, all of it's fascinating to be. When he fought Gamboa in Omaha, yeah, long time ago, every once in a while I would do some,

like, moonlighting for the commission when they need some extra help for big events like that. And so I was working Terrence's corner. So all I'm doing is sitting in there because I know them all. So I'm just hanging out, making sure nobody's doing nothing, you know, nefarious. And Gamboa sends his, like, in boxing, you have the ability to send one of your coaches or corners. Yeah.

To the other locker room. To watch. To watch the hands be wrapped. Yeah, make sure there's nothing. So Gamboa sends one of his guys over. and Terrence is sitting there and like this team has all the gauze and the tape and stuff like set up

strategically for Terrence and he's sitting there and he goes you ready? And the guy's looking around like well where's the cut man or whoever's gonna wrap his hands? He's like looking around and goes yeah I'm waiting on you. Terrance starts grabbing it.

He just starts going to town wrapping his hands fast, super fast. Pazes. They stick the gauze and like they have this down to a science. Gets one hand done in like three minutes just the other hand done in like two. I mean, he's got the whole thing beginning to end.

It's got to be less than six or seven minutes. And that guy looked blown away. And I remember thinking, Fight over. It was probably better. You didn't watch that. Yeah, fight's over. He'll go back and go, hey, man.

That's a blue-collar guy. That's a blue-collar guy. You go in there and wrap your own hands and then go beat the hell out of somebody. That's crazy. The details and crazy enough of it all. That is spectacular. We will sort of break. We'll close out with Anthony Lionheart Smith and then set you up for Bach in the black shirt here.

on the ticket.