1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - UFC Fighter and Commentator Anthony "Lionheart" Smith IN STUDIO (part 2): July 15th

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

UFC Fighter and Commentator Anthony "Lionheart" Smith IN STUDIOAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to One-on-One with DP, sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, on 93-7 the ticket and the ticket FM.com. Smith snaps Mutopchich's head back with that right hand. Oh, Motovchich's in trouble. Anthony Lionheart Smith. I spent, it's funny, knowing the stories and then falling into the stories were deeply, and you go back to your run. I didn't know that you had so many fights. to Nebraska. Yeah, I had a lot.

And you're defeated Nebraska. What's the problem, man? More fights here. That's what I said. The whole time I tried to get us a main event right here in Lincoln and it was booked. It was ready to go. The tickets were sold. And then COVID hit.

Yeah. It was scheduled for PBA. Do you think they ever come back? Yeah, for sure. For sure. They had a great turnout here. There's a lot of Midwest guys. They love Kansas City.

They love Des Moines. Lincoln is absolutely going to be on the radar for sure. I mean, you've got, I mean, Grant Dawson's connected. Of course, Drew Dober is connected. There's a big market for it, and there's some up-and-comers. So it will be interesting. Anthony in the Lionheart Smith here on one-on-one. You were talking about family and your daughters and how important they are.

And it is eye-opening and it changes vision to watch you with your family. Like, I think everybody, like that would be its own show. It's just you and your. Oh, it's a reality show for you. It's a mess. You know, but you said before that it changed you. Oh, yeah, definitely. Changed you how?

You know, as we were talking earlier, like, everything that I was doing was kind of just flying by the seat of my pants. I had no, I had no direction. I had no plan. I was just doing things. I didn't know why I was doing them. I just, this feels right, so I'm going to chase it. Excuse me.

So then I meet Michaela. So my, like, one of my best friends growing up, her name is nadine and nadean and i were really really great friends well then once i dropped out and then she graduated she went on to college and i started chasing this fighting thing well then she plays volleyball uh in fremont at midland and her roommate is so is this this nice lady named macaela well then i run into them just randomly in omaha we're all out you know i think michaela and i were 22 and i run into nadine and i she's got this you know pretty attractive lady with her and I'm like well I I want to know that lady I want to meet

that girl and so you know we exchanged numbers through needing and you know the rest of sister this 15 years ago and and now we're married with four kids but um at the time I was a mess I was a disaster I was barely making my rent I was kind of struggling up and down in this fight world and I remember she asked me like what do you do like I fight and she was no like for a job That's what I'm trying to do. It's not going that great right now. But I'm trying real hard. And she just, I was passionate about it.

So she was like, all right, cool. That's what he does. I don't really understand it, but that's what he does. It's amazing how we look into women. Oh, dude, who will buy into that version of us. Dean Thomas will tell you she made a bad bet. Dean Thomas told her that was a bad bet. There's maybe that hits one out of a million times.

and you got lucky and it worked out, fortunately, there was no, like, there was no money, there was no fame. Like, I was probably not going to make it. I think I was five and four as a pro. Like, I wasn't very good. Yeah. It wasn't going well, but she was about it because I liked it. And so fairly soon into our relationship, she ended up, she ends up pregnant.

And that kind of changed everything for me. It was, and it didn't initially. I think there's that saying that moms become moms as soon as they're, pregnant and dads don't really become dads until the baby's here because they don't quite understand it. And so I was still kind of a mess. And she stuck with me through the entire thing. I just, I was all over the place, it was up and down. I'm still kind of struggling with a lot of the mental health stuff I think I had going on. There was just some, some depression. And I was, I don't know, I was uncomfortable in life. And I just had a lot going on. But I remember this is,

and this is the spaghetti story. She was like eight and a half months pregnant. just huge and we have no money and the way that we ended up living together I went on a fight trip to go corner some friends uh somewhere in uh Illinois and when I came back I'd been evicted for my apartment and I had nowhere to stay and so she said well you have a fight coming up and you could go to your moms but then you're going to have to drive and you got nowhere for your dogs and if you want you can to stay here and this is really early in our relationship she said well you can to stay here and then once you fight, you know, you can use that money and figure out what you're going to do after that. I just never left. I started staying there and I just never left.

And so then we end up getting our own place together. But then, you know, we have no money. She's working. She's super pregnant. She's working overnight at Children's Hospital. And we are scrounging change at our cars, in our house, anywhere we can find it so we can buy the ingredients for spaghetti. And so we drive, we're on 108th of maple. We're drive to like a bag and save. And we're about to get out of the car and I can't do it. I just can't. I'm too embarrassed that I can't walk through this store and pay for the ingredients for spaghetti with my pregnant girlfriend with change. I couldn't do it. And then so I just, well, you just go and I'll just wait here. I was so embarrassed. And she didn't bat an eye. She said, all right, cool.

I'll go. Just a full-on OG. That's fine. I'll go. So she goes in and while she's in the store, I felt like the dirt on the bottom of your shoe. And that was when I made the decision. And I started saying it from that moment on, it was world champion or die trying? Like I have to figure it out. I have to, because she's willing to. She's willing to grind. She's willing to be, you know, know, in the mess. She didn't bat an eye. She just, yeah, go do it. And I couldn't do it.

I just, my ego wouldn't allow it. And so that was when I made the decision. I don't care, I don't care who I got to kill. I don't care who I got to knock out. I don't care who I got to beat. I don't care who I got to step on. I have to make it. I have to figure it out.

And that was when I kind of just made that decision that if I have to run myself in a car accidents over and over and over and over again, I have to make sure that her and that baby are okay. And that's kind of when that resurgence and that street kind of started. And that was quite the run. You know, having met your wife, I understand that. And people say all the time, you know, we outkick our coverage. Oh, for sure.

Right. We outkick our coverage and go, no, but this is the thing. Yeah, I don't deserve her. Right. Like, listen, folks around here who know, my wife, they know Becky, they recognize that we are other ends of the spectrum about most things, but we constantly meet on the bridge in the middle to get better, to just get through. And this station doesn't happen without her going to get spaghetti. Right. Right. Like how many times she went to get

the spaghetti so that we live as we do now. And it's necessary to say it's brilliant. Anthony Lein-Hart Smith. UFC, ESPN, you know, and again, this is why I, I was thrilled in having the conversation with you because I know that you can set everybody's world on fire when it comes to the UFC and the fight game. I know how passionate you are to make the journey from Omaha to Lincoln to watch the Huskers and, you know, how much it matters, right? I know how you manage time like a madman to be there for your daughters and all the athletic things that are going on. Always. Right. And then the constant attempt to be dad of the year, right? I'm trying. I fail a lot. You know, no, I just like to watch you at Supernova's matches. And your daughter's

just beam. Beam. Here's what I don't know what else is going. I know your daughters know their love. For sure. Absolutely. They know their dad will do anything for them. Anything. You know, to beat that kind of hero, to ride them in and introduce them to their heroes. Right. And shout out the Supernova. Credit to you and the Nova's, though. Like, that makes me look really good. That makes me look really good when I said, well, hey, my friends are going to introduce you guys to these incredible athletes that you guys look up to.

Makes me look like a superstar, but really that's you guys. Well, here's the thing. This is paying it back and paying it forward because, as I said, we've been at UFC events all over the country. And without fail, you and Bruce Buffer have been exceptional. Like, y'all make a point. Okay, where are you at, dude? Let me come give some love.

And it's even in Salt Lake City, right? We're socializing and you make time for my friend. So it shows me who you are and why you want to root for people and fight for people. And I can tell you it's been exceptional to learn how to watch fighters that you know do this thing. It's not easy. Your wife's a superhero. I don't know how she goes through the training. When we were younger, it wasn't that big of a deal.

it was it was kind of just i think she was just yeah that's what he loves to do and so i'm going to support it but she didn't really she didn't really struggle with it too much like okay well she didn't really ever care if i won or loss as long as i was okay she didn't really care yeah as we got older and we started having kids and the stakes get higher and the the highs are high but the lows are really low so she knows like one if i'm if i'm injured now i have to go through a surgery and then we got to go through PT and I'm going to be in a lot of pain and she's going to be sitting in a hospital waiting room waiting for me to come out of surgery and I'm going to be, she's going to hear me before she sees me because it's because I'm going to be in a lot of pain

and then she's got to get me home and then she's got to her and the kids got to usher me into a bed and then they've got to take turns bringing pain meds and trying to get me back on my feet. As hard as that is for them, they know that it's equally painful for me, not just physically, but I hate being down. I hate being down and I hate to lose more than I like to win. So if I'm injured and I took a loss, to me, that's the worst possible place I could be. I couldn't imagine a worst place mentally to be

than to be injured, fresh out of surgery, knowing that I'm going to have a long road back and sitting on a loss. It's painful. So I think just the stakes get higher. So if I take a loss, like, man, we're going to have to win two more to get back. back to a title shot.

Like we're two more. Like if that fight is, you win this, you go into a title. I was in a couple of those. You win this, you're back in a title shot. And then I lose. And something free happens and I break my leg. And then it's like, okay, now you're calculating. Man, we're going to have to do this three more times before we're even back in title contention.

And then you win two. And you're like, all right, we win this next one. I'm going to get a title shot. And then you don't. And then you're back in surgery. And then you're coming out of the hospital and you're like, man. Let's go through the list. of surgeries. Yeah, there's a lot.

Like, I mean, I got, I got one coming up in two weeks. What do you have to have done? Two level fusion in my neck and a disc replacement right above it. So you, all the things you just talked about, it's about to happen in full. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, brother. We're about to be there again.

Brother, brother. Yeah. Now, it, that's the journey that nobody sees. Nobody, everyone, everyone loves to see us entertaining and in there just tearing each other apart. But no one pays attention to what happens the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve weeks that follow it. The days after, the night after, I try to explain to folks on air, whenever I go to UFC

event and I come back on air on Monday and try to explain the two facts, the facets of it, the preface of it of the weight loss in the training camps and then those final hours on Friday morning for way in, which are just, if you've ever been in a hotel convention area, where fighters are trying to make weight and you walk into a bathroom, you never know what you're going to see. Like, you never know what you're going to go through because fighters are crying and they're, you know,

they're in pain. I've never seen so many grown men cry. Right. Like, it's just an amazing thing. And it gives me a respect, a high level respect for women fighters. Because it's much more difficult for them. It's way harder for them. Right, for them to go through this thing.

Especially depending on the time of month. Right. Like, there's so many things that happen. That thing is down to a science. And sometimes for women, You might hit Tuesday a fight week and all of a sudden you got an extra seven that you weren't expecting. You can't. You can't deal with it. And people talk about it so casually.

I'm like, no. But then I try to explain that, you know, I'll run from Cade's side to the back media area to do the interviews or be there in the interview room. And you try to explain to people that the losers go straight to the hospital. Always. And half the winners. And half the winners. Yeah. That there are, I can tell you that most nights.

The winners are wheelchaired or on crutches when they come into the post-fight conference. This is, it is the most, fresh, fresh stitches in our face. It is like, it is the most bizarre, I say it all the time that most UFC fighters are barely human. You're barely human. Like diet consumption, the sciences behind it, each of you is an individual science lab that nobody else can replicate. how your body processes, all the things that you have to do to make a fight. And I'd say it all the time that Dana pays people to make weight. Like it's almost like, I will pay you extra if I can count on the fact that I'm going to ask people to fly all over the world to this town in America to watch us, to watch you fight.

You have to make weight, but you have to weigh this much. That amount. That's the real fight. The other part of it will do. You walk around it. What was your walk around? wait. Same as it is now.

I'm like 240. And you, but you fought it 205. Mm-hmm. That, do you know how many people, do you, are you creating your own

Anthony Lion Hartsmith diet plan? Like, no, no, you don't want to be on that one. Just to help people. The logo would be a yo-yo. Yeah.

That's perfectly what it is, though. It's crazy. And I always feel guilty because there are relationships with fighters up building up to camp before you go to camp.

Then I need people alone. I disappear. because I never really know what kind of day the fighters have. Neither do we. Right? And then afterwards, you can win the fight or lose the fight. And I just want to plan a seed to let you know that somebody's out there rooting for you no matter what. Like rooting for you.

Right. The decision is the decision. But you want, but you don't want to be intrusive, I would imagine that how many texts do you get after a win? After a win? Yeah. Thousands. thousands of texts. Just bombarding your phone.

How many texts do you get doing a loss? After a loss. 50. And so that's the dance of the people who care about you and love you, trying to be considerate, but also letting you know. Well, sometimes there'll be people that I expect to text off a loss, and they don't. And I'll check them.

Like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You got no problem sending me a text coming off a win. Why don't you text me when I lose? And I used to get angry about it. Now I understand it because they don't know what to say. I don't, I never know what to say. I never, listen. Yeah, they don't know what to say.

It was there tonight you broke your leg and I just went, bruh. Like I literally, I just typed bruh. Like, because the pain, I was like, I was going well too. Yeah, I just went. Oh. Yeah, I was going well. That's like kind of like my life though, and I've just learned to accept it.

But, you know, I fight Khalil Roundtree on eight days notice. The fight's going pretty. well we're one to one going to third. I'm putting the pressure on and then I just get clipped and then he fights for a title. I'm doing real well with Uncle I the fights going, he's going exactly how I wanted it to. And then I break my leg and now he's the

champion. Man, I was so close. But that's the thing. The difference between being one of the 10 best fighters in the world and being the best fighter in the world. And we would at some point, hopefully in our two, we get to the

John Jones fight. amongst everything else. From the text line, there are folks that have asked about the break-in, so we got to talk about that. Of course. We got to talk about

what's happening in the fight game. We got to talk about your career behind the desk because I think it's just remarkable that you have found your way. Like, if you could talk to 13-year-old Anthony Smith

and tell him the story of, hey, bro, guess what you're going to be doing at 30s? I'm going to say, no, you're on drugs. You're on drugs. Right? But I think that's so much the message

for people and I don't want the message to get lost in the story that why Anthony Lionheartsmith is who he is is the accumulation of a lot of friction and a lot of people loving on him. And then that Lionheart. Lionheart thing, man, it's more appropriate is that we'll go to break. We want to bring in the folks from Tipsy teams, but I'm going to ask Anthony to hang out for five minutes while I get that man and pay some bills. And then we'll come back for hour two because I really want to get into this other stuff. Anthony Lionheart Smith here one-on-one. We'll be back.