UFC light heavyweight veteran Glover Teixeira had an outstanding performance fight at the UFC Jacksonville on May 13th. He defeated Anthony Smith via TKO, after inflicting cumulative damage on his opponent throughout the fight. Including missing teeth, busted nose and a fractured orbital bone.
Speaking to Ag Fight (as transcribed by Bloody Elbow), Teixeira reflected on the fight against Smith and shared how bad he felt.
“When he handed his own tooth to the referee and said: ‘Here, hold my tooth.’, I thought he was going to give up or that he was injured,” he said. “I was baffled and stopped to see what that was all about. Then he handed the tooth over and I apologized to him, I told him it was part of the job. He told me ‘It is what it is’. He was still in the fight, so I kept trying to finish the fight.”
Nonetheless, Teixeira doesn’t feel good about hurting his opponents, although it is a part of the fight game.
“That had never happened to me before. You always want to win and score a knockout, but we don’t want that. It’s part of the job, but to lose teeth, break a bone, I don’t want anyone to go through that. I was kind of bothered by that, but it’s part of the job.”
Teixeira is now on a four-fight win streak, having beaten Karl Roberson, Ion Cutelaba, and Nikita Krylov, prior to Smith. He also moved up in the UFC light heavyweight rankings, now holding the number five spot, which puts him back in the title contention at 40 years-old.
Who would you like to see Glover Teixeira fight next?
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