Anthony Smith Confident He and 'Beatable' Jon Jones Will Meet Again

Anthony Smith may have come away from UFC 235 on the wrong end of a lopsided five-round decision, but he found some positive takeaways.

Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champ Jon Jones continued to prove why he’s one of the best fighters ever with a comprehensive victory over Smith in Saturday night's main event. Despite an illegal knee by Jones to the head of his grounded opponent for which the champ was deducted two points, “Bones” always looked in control and came away with a decisive victory in the end.

Since moving up up from middleweight to light heavyweight, Smith has looked like a rejuvenated fighter, finishing two former UFC champions in Rashad Evans and Maurcio Rua as well as submitting dangerous Swiss kickboxer Volkan Oezdemir. Now, after surviving 25 minutes in the cage with the champion, Smith believes Jones is beatable (via MMAFighting.com):

“That’s a beatable man,” Smith said. “I didn’t walk out of there thinking, ‘Wow, he’s a lot better than I thought.’ Like when (Quinton) ‘Rampage’ (Jackson) lost to Jon and he stood there and said. like, ‘This kid’s for real, this guy’s good,’ like almost laying out to Jon. I don’t feel like that.

“I’m not gonna take anything away from him because he did a phenomenal job of doing what he had to do tonight, but I don’t have the feeling that’s a guy that I can’t beat.”

Smith showed great resilience against Jones surviving wave after wave of attacks including the illegal knee. The man affectionately known as “Lionheart” proved he could hang with the best.

“I absolutely belong here and I think that the fight alone proves that,” Smith said. “I don’t know what other 205ers are gonna f--- with me, I just don’t see that happening. I was in there, you know what I mean?

“And I don’t feel like I got ran through, I just kind of got shut down. I don’t feel like Jon Jones just went in there and beat the shit out of me, I just couldn’t get going. That’s Jon Jones though. I said I needed to force Jon Jones to fight me and I didn’t do that. He didn’t fight me, he nullified me. It’s going to haunt me for a long time and I’m gonna have to get back to the drawing board and sit down with [coaches] Marc [Montoya] and Scott [Morton] and figure out what the f--- happened.”

Smith admitted that Jones was masterful at preventing him from getting his attacks off first which was something he was adamant he wouldn’t let the champ do in the lead-up to the fight.

“I don’t know what happened. I did exactly what I told everyone I wasn’t gonna do,” Smith said. “I let Jon Jones sit back and be Jon Jones. I guess sometimes you go in there and it’s not your night, I guess. But that’s just not good enough for me. I don’t know, I just couldn’t pull the trigger and when I did, I didn’t combo up like I was supposed to.

“I didn’t do anything I was supposed to do except for defending takedowns and I think I did a much better job of checking kicks than I have in the past. My cardio held up so all you f---ing idiots can stop talking about it. That’s really the only positive I can take from this. It’s a whole f--- ton of negatives, that’s for sure.”

Smith claims this won’t be the last time him and Jones meet and that he will do whatever it takes to get another chance at the champion.

“I’ll be back,” Smith said. “Jon Jones and I will see each other again, that’s for sure. Because there’s no one else in the entire f---ing division that’s gonna do anything about that. I don’t care who it is. There’s no one else that’s gonna stop me from getting back to Jon Jones.”