UFC fighter Anthony Smith has slammed Conor McGregor for making 'invalid' excuses following his defeat to Dustin Poirier and claims The Notorious 'knows he’s never gonna convince us'.
The Irishman suffered a broken tibia and fibula to cast doubt on his future as he lost to his American rival via doctor's stoppage in round one at UFC 264 in Las Vegas.
McGregor claimed he had 'multiple stress fractures' in the shinbone right above his left ankle heading into the trilogy bout which the UFC had been made aware of - as confirmed by Dana White - although this has been disputed by sports doctor David Abassi.
But Smith hit back at McGregor's 'excuses' and revealed he was carrying a serious injury into his fight with Jimmy Crute that left him virtually unable to throw leg kicks in final sparring sessions.
“Everyone who loses has an excuse,” Smith told SiriusXM. “It’s new for Conor to be like that. I’m not the excuses guy, but in my own circle, all my friends know what’s going on. They know pre, and they know post.
"Like, ‘I know you’re never gonna say this, but what was going on here? I know you’ll never say this publicly because you don’t make excuses,’ and I’ll absolutely tell my friends what’s going on.
"You knew that my hand was broken going into the Glover fight, and I never said anything about it because it’s not an excuse. Glover probably had a broken hand. We all are injured.
“Going into the Jimmy Crute fight, I can talk about it because I won – my leg was f-----. Totally f-----. I couldn’t kick almost the entire training camp. I had this huge, huge hematoma, and I’m lucky enough the commission didn’t catch it, because I don’t know if they would have let me fight.
"The point of that is we’re all banged up going in. The sport is very hard, and you put your body – the fight’s the easiest part. Making it through a training camp as uninjured as possible is the tough part.”
Smith also insists that this isn't anything out of the ordinary.
In fact, he claims that this is a fairly common occurrence, adding that injuries are simply a part and parcel of a UFC fighter's daily life.
“I would say Conor wasn’t any more hurt than Dustin was going into that fight,” he added. “That’s not me saying Conor wasn’t banged up or his legs weren’t bothering him or his shin wasn’t cracked up or whatever, but he wasn’t any more injured than Dustin Poirier was, and that’s my perspective at it from an athlete.
"It’s easy for a fan or someone who has never done it to say, ‘Oh, he was hurt.’ We’re all hurt. Every single one of us, every single time we fight, there’s not one person that can ever say they go in 100 percent healthy.
"So his excuses are very invalid to me. To the general public, it makes sense that they people would buy into that excuse, but Conor knows that all of us don’t buy it because we’re all hurt too.
"That’s kind of how I look at it, but he’s not lobbying to us. It’s to the general public, the buyers, the pay-per-view buyers. Those are the people he needs to convince, but he knows he’s never gonna convince us.”
Read more: Charles Oliveira predicts he will 'submit' Dustin Poirier in December