Jacobe Smith knows Daniel Cormier better than most, and believes the former two-division UFC champion and current color commentator is a bit misunderstood.<\/p>\n
The undefeated Smith returns to action in the co-main event of Saturday\u2019s UFC Vegas 123 event against veteran Randy Brown. The Fight Night card follows a spectacular UFC 333 card where \u201cDC\u201d served in the color commentary role. While a chunk of the fan base had their critiques of Cormier\u2019s performance, none were more vocal than Dominick Reyes, who ripped Cormier\u2019s commentary<\/a> during his knockout win over Azamat Murzakanov, giving him an \u201cF+\u201d grade.<\/a><\/p>\n Smith, who is coached by Cormier, gave his thoughts on the situation ahead of the biggest fight of his career.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just dealing with a phase in their career where things ain\u2019t going 100 percent like they want or they\u2019re not getting the shine that they want to get to where they know they want to be, and, you know, they get a little butt-hurt and get to running their mouth talking shit that they don\u2019t really mean,\u201d Smith told MMA Fighting. \u201cSo I guarantee you, [if] they sat down face to face with them, they would understand how good of a guy [Cormier] is.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I live it. I see it every day I get to be around him, his family. When we\u2019re in public and it gets overwhelming and how you deal with it, it\u2019s so professional and I could see Conor McGregor in that situation and him having his security keep people away and like, no, he\u2019s the most down-to-earth person. People are going to have their opinions and talk their shit and I guess that\u2019s just the world we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n The 30-year-old Smith is 4-0 in the UFC, finishing all four opponents inside of two rounds, and 11 of 13 overall in his pro career.<\/p>\n Despite being one of the sport\u2019s brightest and most dangerous up-and-comers, Smith says he deals with his share of haters as well.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just can\u2019t think too much about it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s just like a fan. I\u2019m out here knocking people out winning and they\u2019re talking shit, telling me how bad I am, they can\u2019t wait to see me get knocked out\u2026 or my mother is this and that. I mean, people are going to talk, you just got to let it be, blow it in the wind, is what I would say.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gets terrible. If I went through the worst things, you would, you would not believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCobe\u201d now steps in on less than two weeks\u2019 notice as a replacement for an injured Carlos Leal to face Brown, who makes his 23rd walk to the octagon and looks to snap a two-fight skid. In his most recent bout, Brown dropped a decision to Kevin Holland at UFC 327 in April.<\/p>\n Smith has trained with Brown in the past and couldn\u2019t have more respect for him. While it\u2019s a different feeling competing against somebody he\u2019s friendly with, Smith is ready to make a big leap in one of the promotion\u2019s deepest divisions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe go in there and handle business, get out 14-0 and hopefully get a top 15 opponent,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI\u2019m coming in here to create legacy, go win a belt, put myself in a position to go fight for that belt, and this is the best opponent up until this day that I\u2019ve had, and I guess I\u2019ll keep showing these people that got something to say and my fans that know where I\u2019m gonna get to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacobe Smith knows Daniel Cormier better than most, and believes the former two-division UFC champion and current color…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-947713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}