One day, Glover Teixeira will cease to be one of the world’s best light heavyweight MMA fighters. That day was not Wednesday.
Eighteen years after his pro debut, Teixeira proved his caliber yet again in the main event of UFC Jacksonville, beating Anthony Smith via TKO at 1 minute, 4 seconds of the fifth round. Teixeira, at 40 years old and six years after his most recent title shot, has won four straight.
“It’s not how hard you hit,” Teixeira told Daniel Cormier in the post-fight interview. “It’s how hard you get hit and keep coming forward.”
The card took place at an empty VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. It was the second UFC event in four days, following UFC 249 on Saturday at the same venue. The promotion caps its busy eight-day stretch with another show from VyStar on Saturday. Before last weekend, the UFC had not run an event since March 14 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Smith vs. Teixeira was supposed to headline a UFC card April 25 in Lincoln, Nebraska, before the schedule getting reshuffled due to COVID-19.
Coming in, Smith was ESPN’s No. 5-ranked MMA light heavyweight fighter and Teixeira was No. 9. Both are former title contenders in the weight class, falling to legendary champion Jon Jones.
Smith had a strong first two rounds Wednesday night, using a very good jab and right hand, which found its home over and over. Teixeira’s left eye began to swell.
But in the third, Teixeira turned the tide. He landed a big combination with a head kick against the cage, then a monstrous uppercut seconds later. A Teixeira uppercut put Smith down. The bout could have been stopped there, but referee Jason Herzog let it continue and Smith survived the rest of the round.
“The guy hits like a truck, man,” Teixeira said. “But I move my head a lot.”
The fourth and fifth were much of the same, with Teixeira punishing Smith with hard punching combinations on the feet and ground and pound on the ground. Smith was a bloody mess in the fourth and he told his corner that he felt his teeth coming out before the fifth. Teixeira got Smith down in the fifth, slipped into mount and rained down huge punches until Herzog stopped it.
It was just the second fifth-round TKO in UFC light heavyweight history. The other featured Alexander Gustafsson stopping Teixeira in the last round of their 2017 bout.
After being outlanded in significant strikes 73-44 in the first two rounds, Teixeira had a 94-13 edge the rest of the way.
Teixeira said he has taken inspiration from Cormier and middleweight contender Yoel Romero, two men over 40 years old who remain elite fighters. Teixeira said he is been using the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas for recovery and is training smarter not harder recently.
“You’ve gotta open your mind,” Teixeira said. “You’ve gotta look for help when things are going wrong. That’s what I did, baby. And I’m on another run toward the title.”
Smith had a difficult training camp. On April 5, a stranger entered into his home in the middle of the night and Smith engaged him in a brawl. Smith called it “one of the toughest fights” of his life. He was uninjured, but the man, Luke Haberman, was hospitalized and cited for the intrusion. Smith lives with his wife, mother-in-law and three daughters in Omaha, Nebraska.
Teixeira (31-7), the longtime training partner of Chuck Liddell, passed his former teammate and Rashad Evans to move into third place on the UFC light heavyweight win list (14). Teixeira, a Brazil native who lives and trains in Connecticut, picked is now tops in UFC light heavyweight history with 11 finishes.
Smith (33-15) was coming off a win over fellow former title contender Gustafsson in June 2019. The Nebraska native is now 1-1 since his loss to Jones at UFC 235 on March 2, 2019. Smith, 31, closed as a -210 favorite Wednesday night.
