1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Wrestling Parents Attitudes: August 1st, 12:00pm

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Wrestling Parents AttitudesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. One-on-one. Appreciate you hanging out. Greatly appreciate it. Anthony Lionheartsmith in the room. Thank you all.

The starter-hammer text line, 402, 4-6-4-5. Of course, you guys are active. We'll get to as many of them as we can. Promise. All the live video streams facing with YouTube X, Allo Channel 961. Download the ticket app. Please, please, please. And thank you.

Bach, would you please? Who makes this happen for us in hour number two? Yeah, the noon hour is lunchtime, and that means it's ready. You're time to go to Mulberry barbecue. Now with two locations at 11th and Cornhouse Creek and at 61st in Apple's Way. right off of highway two over there by lows. Both locations are open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Try their burnt-in sandwiches, a brisket burrito,

barbecue notches, a full slab of ribs, a half-smoked chicken, and much, much more plus incredible sides. Get fueled for lunch today or make dinner plans at Mulberry Barbecue, located at 11th in Corn Husker and at 61st in Apples way just off of Highway 2 by Lowe's. What else you got, Bob? Well, if you're going to Kansas City for the Husker game on Thursday, August 28th. The place to party before is with blur events. The tailgate on the main concourse of the Royal's Coffman Stadium goes from 3.30 to 8 p.m. with the capacity of 2,000 people. All ages are

welcomed. Children 5 and under are free. Parking in the game are steps away from the tailgate. Enjoy access to ballpark concessions offering food and beverages. Tailgate games like cornhole, beer pong, and flip cup. And 93-7 the ticket on the scene for the pregame tailgate show. Buy tickets today at blur events.com backslash kansas city. Bach, let's set the tone in the room for hour two. Sayers pounces on him nevertheless stacking them up. There he goes, trying to check. Looking for the trial.

The choke is Lionheart Anthony Smith. That's deep. He's got to keep that. It's over. I can't even fathom. Like, I get goosebumps just because I know the clip, but I need for you to walk through, walk us through what's going through your head in the moment. Like you remember that fight and I'm pretty sure you,

Lamamba Sears. Right? Strike Force. Yep. So in that moment, transitioning to triangle, what's the trigger? What's the thing to go? Oh, it's time. I honestly, I don't know. I actually have a lot of triangle finishes. And it's just like second nature at this point. If, if I feel a couple things or, you know, it just feels right, then it just, it just, I find myself. there.

Lamamba Sayers is a, man, what a sad story, actually. Tell the story for folks that don't know. So, LaMaba and I go way back. We tried out for the Ultimate Fighter both times together. We didn't really know each other. Same weight class, same kind of regional scene. Almost ran into each other a couple times in certain fights, and those fights just never came together.

Really, really nice guy, though. A bit of a street dude. A lot of gang activity when he was younger, started fighting. You know, started having, you know, he had a couple of kids and kind of changed his life. Started the Heavy Hands Foundation, which was helping inner city youth, disadvantaged youth. And then it was doing well. He got signed a strike force. Never quite made it to the UFC, but ended up on Dog the Bounty Hunter a bunch.

He was working with Dog, doing a lot of the Midwest stuff that Dog the Bounty Hunter was doing. and his son, Lamumba Sayers Jr., was killed. It was murdered in a shooting. And his son was involved in some gang stuff, some street life stuff. Lamombo had done a lot of public speaking by trying to pull his own son out of it,

but they had a great relationship. He just didn't like what his son did. And the people that were responsible for it were arrested ended up getting off on a technicality, I believe. And no one, they knew exactly who did it, but no one ever faced any charges, ultimately, for the murder of Lumumba's son. Lamumba really struggled.

I ran into him a couple times after that in Denver. And every time I seen him, it was always big, even though we fought and I beat him, it was nothing but love between the two of us. I always appreciated him. He was a big, loud personality, very boisterous person, like not in his attitude, but in his volume. Yeah. And I remember I ran into him in Denver.

And I seen him and he was just not the Lumumba that I knew before. He was sad and very glossed over, very empty inside. Shortly after that, Lamumba Sayers, walked into a 12-year-old's birthday party and murdered the person. that killed his son and so Lamma Sires is now in prison. It is, it is so much a part of sports, uh, and athletic, the portions of athletic life, sports life where the struggle is so much up, like almost necessary for you to succeed for sure at that level. And then hopefully you find some guidance and boundary.

You find a good mentor that sets the table and say, okay, listen, there's some things as you grow that you need to look that toughness we can use but there needs to be boundary to it is there a space in the ufc that allows uh for counselors etc to work with fighters and say look here's how you separate that part the the not good part from the toughness and the streets and your life prior to yes and no so those resources are available but you have to be the one to reach out so whether there's substance abuse problems, whether it's some mental health stuff, all of those resources are there for the UFC, and they will go above and beyond. If you have any issues and you reach out, the UFC will take care of you. They'll make sure that you get it figured out. They'll put you in a

rehab program. They'll get you set up with counseling, with therapists, psychiatrists, whatever it is that you need, but they're not going to chase you. So what typically happens is people get in trouble, whether it's some public substance abuse stuff or some trouble you get in legally or there's red flags. I hate to bring it up, but guys like Tony Ferguson end up in some weird, public disputes that ends up all over TMZ

and then the USC steps in and says, hey, this is exactly what you're going to do if you want to continue to work here, then they'll step in and do it. But otherwise, if it's all private and behind closed doors, there's no way that they could know. So you've got to reach out yourself.

You mentioned the fact that you and Alambo still, I mean, it was cordial almost friendly, brotherly after the fact. What's the usual relationship between fighters who compete? That's the usual. That is the usual. For the most part. Definitely with the older guys. The guys have been around a while.

The young cats, and I was the same way. The young cats are still so prideful. And if you lost, then you're kind of like, man, I hate that dude. I want to get that one back. If you won, you're like, that dude's a bum. Like, that's how it is when you're young. Yeah. As you get older, you start to realize that this, again, we talk about balance.

When you're younger, everything is about fighting. It's your identity. It's who you are. So when someone tries to take it from you, it's personal. As you get older and you start having families and fighting becomes more of something that you do and not who you are. So fighting very much, when I met Michaela, it was my identity. It was who I was. It defined every part of my cell, like every cell in my body.

and as life goes on and we start to mature and we get older and we had kids young and we start to become parents and then we you know it's just more of something I do it was just something I did it wasn't it wasn't who I was when it's like that then it's me and Glover Tashara had an epic battle oh that was and and Michaela and like Glover's wife hug each other when they see each other. Like there's a bond that we've all formed just between the four. Like the four of us won't see each other in public and not all of us hug each other. It's a very loving and it's real. It's genuine. I genuinely love that guy. And because I experienced something with him that I'll never experience again ever in my life or, and I've never experienced anything like it. There was an exchange of pieces of

each other. Yeah, you found, you found parts of yourself that you, you weren't familiar with. For sure. And, and he had to do the same thing. Like, it was kind of a tale of two fights. I kind of ran away with it for the first half of the fight. And then he kind of beat me pillar to post after that. But we, we left a large part of each other with the other person. Where do you, where do you and your wife land on your, your girls watching you fight? They've never not watched. They've never not watched. That, that is spectacular. And what's the message to them as they watch it? So they don't, they don't, they don't attribute violence to conflict.

So they know that what I do, what I did was just a job. And this is how I, like, you're not just walking the streets, beating people up. I get, I get so weird when you see these guys who, it's so odd to me, when you see guys that talk about honor and respect and that they're doing this to feed their family. But then it's too violent or not on. enough to let your children watch. Like you have to,

like my kids know exactly where the roof over their, the roof over their head came from. And the work that it took to get there, and they've watched it. So as they could, like my 10 year old hates it. She just, she just not great at it.

Like she's, that's just her personality. She doesn't, she didn't like watching. She doesn't enjoy it. My wrestler, she's like, this is dope.

I love every second. She doesn't care whether I'm winning or losing. She just likes watching it. And my oldest, you know, doesn't enjoy the hurting part of it, but she understands that it's a job. She's an athlete. She competes at a high level. She gets it.

Through. So of the four young ladies that are there, you mentioned the two older. And then there's a wrestler. There is. How did she figure out that this is her jam? That was never me. It was never me.

A lot of people think that, like, I pushed her towards that. Yeah. It was never me. I don't remember where she's seen it the first time. Maybe we were just watching it, like, watching the NCAA finals. Oh, yeah. So we took her to Iowa State Wrestling,

the high school state championships. And she just liked it and she wanted to do it. And so, you know, we started and I had no expectations. I didn't think that she was going to stick around very long. And her first year, she didn't wrestle the entire season until she only practiced. And she had a lot of fun and enjoyed it a lot. And she had a little friend that was about,

It was about her same age. And, you know, so they became little buddies, and then they would come over. And, like, other girls are playing with Barbies and doing whatever they do. And, like, their play is to wrestle. So they're in the basement wrestling. And then she wrestled one tournament at the end of that first year and didn't do well at all. And then the next year, she wrestled more matches. And then last year, she was the district champ, the USA State champ and AAU state champ.

She's rolling. He's rolling. That's just spectacular to know that they find themselves. Yeah. And it fits her personality too. She's like my older two are very, like you just watched my oldest. She's very motherly.

She's cleaning up their messes and making sure they're not getting into stuff. My second oldest is very sensitive, very into fashion and makeup and that's that stuff. Adle's just not. She's nothing like the older too. she's hyper aggressive she's a dirt bag she's she's gross she's feral she's hyper hyper aggressive just not by like not by attitude just by action she's just she's got the honey badger

she breaks everything she wants to wear sweatpants and hoodie every day she like now this is she doesn't care about shoes she wants to get the same pairs whatever shoes she has right now yeah as soon as they're worn out she wants the exact same thing This is when you need to be on the stream to see Anthony's face as he describes this. There's something wrong with her. Which means she's built for this. She is. She's built for this.

I took a picture the other day when she had gotten out of bed. And Michaela and I are sitting on the couch in the morning. And she walks down. And the older two, they wake up, they got to go to the bathroom. They brush their teeth. They get themselves all situated, get their hair all kind of together a little bit. She walks out. she had she still wears she's eight years old right she still wears footy pajamas yeah right

she's it's on like sideways like at some point she'd taken it off and they got the arms in backwards in the middle of the night did her hair look like she had stuck a fork in a like electric socket yeah dude what is wrong with your hair and she goes she just wipes and so it's fine it's this is what we're doing yeah and and the leader of of them all is going to be the youngest like she's she already is right like that that's just you know she wants a whole whole whole thing house. And she knows it. Oh, yeah. Like this is, like, when are you going to talk about me? Like, I'm waiting. I don't know what she's going to do. She says she wants to wrestle, but then she also wants to play soccer. She doesn't really talk about volleyball or basketball too much, but she always

wants to fight me in the living room. Yeah. We've kind of had to push her off a little bit. I don't need a three-year-old beat me up right now. I don't know what I'm, I'm excited. That's, it's my favorite part is figuring out what they're going to do. I had no idea what Adley was going to do. I had no clue. She plays three on three basketball in the summer. Yeah. And, you know, the first year it was pretty rough. She's not much of a basketball player.

This last season, though, this last summer, she did all right. So you never know. You have no idea. And here's the thing, on top of it, they're all super intelligent kids. They are. Like, you've done well by that. I don't know. That's mostly their mom. Well, you know, again, most of the skill set or as it comes from mom.

Most of it's them. You know, we need to fully engage that and give that out. But it's spectacular thing about it from the text line. Hudey Trave says this. He says, I'm also a coach. The number one point that helps. Educate the parents and let them know that you're working on, what they're working on.

It'll keep them grounded and off the coaches back for a bit. Your thoughts to that. For a bit. Yeah, that's the caveats for a bit. you're, I've, and I think I talk about it in such a negative, a negative sense. And maybe I don't mean it to be like that. Because all they want is their kids to be successful. The, the problem is, is I, and this is where it goes back when I said, like, a lot of

these parents have never competed at anything at a high level, they want them to be successful. They, they just want it so bad for their kids. But they don't understand what goes into it, that there's a process and there's a system. and there's going to be a lot of failures before we get to being consistently successful. And I think a lot of parents will compare their kids to other kids. And you can't do that either because they learn at a different rate. They mature at a different rate. Their bodies are different.

Their mindsets are different. There might be a kid that's exactly your kid's age that maybe has been wrestling the exact same amount of time that is significantly better. That's just how this works. That doesn't mean that once we get to the end, of this road where we're actually heading, that that's going to be the case. It's just kids, they just walk their own path. Their journeys are different. Chances are, they're going to be pretty comparable, likely.

And you're going to have your standout stars that are going to be superstars from the very beginning. And that's just life. Like at some point, like LeBron James was a elementary school kid at one point. He was just different. He had a beard at 11, but I mean, other than that, he was just different. there's a handful of people in life that are just born great and chances are it's not your kid yeah you i mean you're you're just art's not my kid well no you're young people won the genetic

lottery they won the DNA pool right like there's no they did look the work ethic will will determine the result for sure and and their want like maybe they maybe adly really enjoys wrestling right now and she maybe she ends up being a like i don't know an academic genius and doesn't want to play sports, which is totally fine. And we would prefer that anyway. For sure. You know, just the thing. Anthony Lennhardt Smith here to Eric.

Eric, okay, so as we do this, you'll learn the certain personalities of our listeners. And Eric, Eric is a former wrestler, but a smart aleck. Okay. So he says, wait, did Anthony just call his daughter a dirt bag? 100%. Yes, he did. 100%. The most affectionate, loving way possible.

Absolutely. And I'll tell her that to her face all the time. If she leaves the house for five minutes, you can guarantee she's coming back. Dirty, muddy. She was gone 10 minutes yesterday. I fixed her bike. Like she got this little electric bike. Her pedal was all messed up.

Me and Michaela struggling to get this thing fixed. I fix it. She's gone 10 minutes. It comes back. It's covered in mud. The fender's broken. She's bleeding out of both knees. And I said, what happened?

I fell down and just walked in the house. That was it. Covered in mud. like head to toe bleeding all the way down her leg she just doesn't care she's Dirk back somehow I think the the Smith family videos have to happen they're Michaela's Facebook page her personal Facebook page it's a it's a it's a it's a reality TV show yeah I would imagine that's quite embarrassed quality entertainment quality entertainment along the way it is a it's one of the weekends

and I try to explain to people having watched UFC events at the various places. There's certain venues that just amplify it, and it's a show, it's special. Madison Square Garden, it's just different. It's different. It's just different. Any of the Florida spots, Orlando and Tampa tend to have different events and the like. But then this is a week where they're at the apex in Vegas, and that's a different. vibe, but I've always went to ask you, is there a difference, is there a different feeling

walking out at the apex and fighting? Oh, yeah. Rather than being in the big building where you just know it's a hype squad, you get the big promotional way in on Friday afternoon. It's an entirely different deal. The energy level is different. But then when the, when the octagon cage locks, do you forget that your apex or do you still in the back of your mind, be aware?

While the fights happening? Yeah. The sound is different, but generally no. My fight style is typically the same. So it just is what it is. I tend to fight better at the apex, or I did. If you were a distraction, maybe? I think just less pressure.

I think the pressure to, it's going to sound like I'm toot my own horn, guess, but the pressure to give the fans, here's, here, okay, kind of a long answer, but so when I do like media, like I do signings or appearances or I do public, you know, like Sirius XM used to do a lot of like public radio shows and stuff. Yeah. Sometimes I'll have to stand outside, take a deep breath, and then turn it on. Because when you're, there's so many fans and there's so many people around, you have to be what they expect you to be. Like they're there for a reason.

And that's not saying that what I'm showing them is fake. It's, it's, I just have to amplify who I already am. And so it takes me a second to like turn it on and I need to be what they need me to be. The pressure to be that at the apex is zero. So there's, there's another element that I was at the pay scale I was at in the UFC and I was got the opportunities and was put in the positions I was because of my popularity. because I understood that although winning fixes everything, there's an entertainment side to it.

So in these big venues, these big shows, these big fight weeks that are packed full, you know, these packed arenas, I have a job that I have to do that's other than fighting. There's a reason I'm at the co-main or, you know, like when I fought for the title, I was at the main event spot on pay-per-view where I've never been on a pay-per-view

and not been on the main card. There's a reason for that. so I have to be that person. So there's a pressure all week long through my media, all the way until the fight day, to be what I'm expected to be. At the apex, you can just go and fight and leave. Yeah, it feels different covering it.

But, man, once the cage, and there's, I'm amazed that I have the sound, but there's a sound in my head that happens when they lock the act. Oh, yeah. When it closes and you go, Right. That's when they on Twitter. You can hear it at the apex. You can hear it.

Do you prefer to hear your fight team at apex level or in the big build? I would rather not hear them. I'd rather not. You're the third fighter that said that. I can't shut it off. So I always do. And it's been helpful, obviously. But I would rather not hear everything.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah, because it's sometimes. too much input. Yeah. Fascinating stuff, man. Which is weird because I coached the complete opposite style. Like, pay attention. Like, I'm over here for a reason.

Yeah, I won't shut. I won't shut up. I won't shut up. I'm surprised at Adley at times or other fighters that I've coached. They'll turn and say, will you shut up? Yeah, let me do what I do. Constantly talking. Oh, it is spectacular, bro.

It's great stuff. I will toward the break. We'll come back. We'll talk about Apex. We'll talk about fight cards that are coming up along the way. and I'm going to ask him about his favorite places to fight. The buildings that he's been in, the favorite places that he's fought,

because I'm sure the list is pretty spectacular. Anthony Lighthouse Smith, one-on-one, we'll be right back.