Jon Jones should feel lucky today.
Not because of how he beat Anthony Smith via unanimous decision at UFC 235 on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Because it was yet another dominant performance by one of the best to ever step in the Octagon.
But it could have gone a lot differently if Smith didn’t make such a classy decision after being hit by an illegal knee to the head in the fourth round while he was still down on that mat.
Referee Herb Dean, who had a tough night, stopped the fight to review a replay of what happened. He ended up taking two points away from Jones but he could have very easily DQ’d Jones and given the light heavyweight belt to Smith.
Here’s the illegal knee:
But Dean didn’t call the fight and DQ Jones because Smith wouldn’t allow it. Instead of playing up what could have have been an injury that many watching would have believed, Smith shook it off and said he was good to go, thus giving up the DQ and the belt in a fight that he was clearly losing.
He said after:
“I know as well as anyone that I could have sat there and taken the DQ win but I wanted to win it. I didn’t want to steal it.”
Pure. Class.
If Smith had opted to not continue the fight after he illegal knee he’d be the champion right now and he’d have huge paydays coming up in the future.
Instead he turned it down because he knew he was OK to finish the fight, even though at that point he knew he’d need a miracle to pull of a victory. Those paydays are now not guaranteed, either.
It was a move that was rightly applauded afterward:
