Jacobe Smith has heard what Dominick Reyes said about Daniel Cormier’s commentary, and he isn’t buying it.
Smith is coached by Cormier and headlines the co-main event of Saturday’s UFC Vegas 123 against Randy Brown. He told MMA Fighting that the people taking shots at his coach are going through a rough patch in their careers, and that frustration is doing the talking.
“They get a little butt-hurt and get to running their mouth talking shit that they don’t really mean,” Smith said.
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The backstory: Cormier worked color commentary on the UFC 333 card. Plenty of fans had notes on his performance, but Reyes was the loudest of them. Reyes knocked out Azamat Murzakanov on that card and then graded Cormier’s call of the fight an F-plus.
Smith’s case is that Reyes and the rest of the critics have never sat across a table from the guy. He said if they did, they’d understand what kind of person Cormier is. Smith said he sees it daily, around Cormier and his family, and described how Cormier handles getting swarmed in public. Smith contrasted that with Conor McGregor, saying he could picture McGregor having security push people back, while Cormier stays approachable.
“He’s the most down-to-earth person,” Smith said.
Smith also knows a little something about getting trashed. He said fans tell him how bad he is and how badly they want to see him get knocked out, and some of them bring his mother into it. His approach is to let it blow away in the wind. “It gets terrible,” he said. “If I went through the worst things, you would, you would not believe me.”
The 30-year-old is 4-0 in the UFC and has finished all four of those opponents inside two rounds. He’s 13-0 as a pro, with 11 finishes.
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The Brown fight came together late. Smith is stepping in on less than two weeks’ notice after Carlos Leal got hurt. Brown makes his 23rd walk to the octagon and is trying to snap a two-fight skid, the latest a decision loss to Kevin Holland at UFC 327 in April. Smith has trained with Brown and said he has nothing but respect for him, though he admitted it’s a different feeling to fight somebody he’s friendly with.
He’s also not shy about what he wants out of it. “We go in there and handle business, get out 14-0 and hopefully get a top 15 opponent,” Smith said. He called Brown the best opponent he’s faced to date.
My take: Smith picked the right fight to have this week, and I don’t mean the one with Reyes. Sticking up for your coach costs nothing. Taking a 22-fight veteran on under two weeks’ notice, in a fight he could have waited out, is the part I respect. If he beats Brown inside two rounds Saturday, he gets that ranked name, and the Cormier pupil becomes the first thing people bring up about him.
