Media Maurice Smith Appreciation Thread

[Ludwig von Mises]

This guy was a fighter's fighter. A UFC champion. A kickboxing champion. A Muay Thai HW champion. 90 fights between kickboxing and Muay Thai during a very competitive and talent filled era of kickboxing.

Maurice Smith wasn't the best kickboxer in the world and lost to the elite guys from that era like Hoost, Aerts, Lebanner and Bernardo but those guys were amazing and it just speaks volumes of the level Smith competed at.

Poatan would have lost to those guys too but he's still a phenomenonal kickboxer. Smith managed to get wins over guys like Michael McDonald who beat Cro Cop and he beat Jorgen Kruth who's professional kickboxing record was like 70-14.

On top having a very serious and respectable career in kickboxing Smith also had almost 30 MMA fights in an era when the sport was violent and dangerous in a different kind of way.

In those days practitioners and organizations were still in a discovery stage and they were building the plane as they were flying it which made for some wild fights with old school refereeing standards, late stoppages and brutal beat downs. Maurice was willing to jump into the fire and throwdown with legends of MMA just like he did against the legends of Kickboxing. Hespect.

Smith managed to become a UFC HW champion and get wins over guys like Mark Coleman who went on to win the Pride 2000 HWGP and Bobby Hoffman who honestly isn't talked about enough.

Hoffman finished his career with a record of 36-10 and had wins over guys like Herring, Ricco Rodriguez, Alistair Overeem , Buentello and Illykhin who submitted Randy. When Smith beat Hoffman, Hoffman's record was 20-2.

These 2 wins alone are solid as fuck but on top of these 2 great wins Smith had decently close fights against Randy and Randleman who were both UFC champions in that era as well.

That's impressive considering Smith wasn't really an MMA fighter. He was just a kickboxer who came into MMA just like Poatan did to knock fools out with small gloves and developed into a decent MMA fighter in the process. He finished his career with 3 wins via submission which showed that he really tried to learn the game and evolve.


Maurice Smith did ok in combat sports. I hespect of heem.

 

[axe wound]

 

[Zebra Cheeks]

This guy was a fighter's fighter. A UFC champion. A kickboxing champion. A Muay Thai HW champion. 90 fights between kickboxing and Muay Thai during a very competitive and talent filled era of kickboxing.

Maurice Smith wasn't the best kickboxer in the world and lost to the elite guys from that era like Hoost, Aerts, Lebanner and Bernardo but those guys were amazing and it just speaks volumes of the level Smith competed at.

Poatan would have lost to those guys too but he's still a phenomenonal kickboxer. Smith managed to get wins over guys like Michael McDonald who beat Cro Cop and he beat Jorgen Kruth who's prone kickboxing record was like 70-14.

On top having a very serious and respectable career in kickboxing Smith also had almost 30 MMA fights in an era when the sport was violent and dangerous in a different kind of way.

In those days practitioners and organizations were still in a discovery stage and they were building the plane as they were flying it which made for some wild fights with old school refereeing standards, late stoppages and brutal beat downs. Maurice was willing to jump into the fire and throwdown with legends of MMA just like he did against the legends of Kickboxing. Hespect.

Smith managed to become a UFC HW champion and get wins over guys like Mark Coleman who went on to win the Pride 2000 HWGP and Bobby Hoffman who honestly isn't talked about enough.

Hoffman finished his career with a record of 36-10 and had wins over guys like Herring, Ricco Rodriguez, Alistair Overeem , Buentello and Illykhin who submitted Randy. When Smith beat Hoffman, Hoffman record was 20-2.

These 2 wins alone are solid as fuck but on top of these 2 great wins Smith had decently close fights against Randy and Randleman who were both UFC champions in that era as well.

That's impressive considering Smith wasn't really an MMA fighter. He was just a kickboxer who came into MMA just like Poatan did to knock fools out with small gloves and developed into a decent MMA fighter in the process. He finished his career with 3 wins via submission which showed that he really tried to learn the game and evolve.

I think Maurice Smith would fit right into today's picture at LHW. Im not saying hed dominate. Obviously there are some horrible matchups for him like Almeida and Rakic who could choose to wrestle him and dominate him on the ground but his skills were still valid enough to present problems for others in the division.

Fortunately for Smith today's LHW division has less guys like them and much more guys like Jiri, Hill, Poatan, Jan and Reyes at the top who prefer to fight standing and shoot it out.

Perhaps Jan would try to take him down but the others wouldn't and I could see Smith being competitive with them and even surprising some of them and knocking them out.

If Smith was fighting today he would be training with a modern camp, giving him access to the modern training, strategy, preparation, sports science and recovery which would help a lot. Guys in then old days had skills but didn't prepare and strategies as well and they didn't take care of themselves as well.

They didn't put as much emphasis on recovery. They fought a lot and didn't have dedicated training camps for specific opponents where they have a perfectly timed camp and hit a peak without over training.

Even without the modern training I reckon Smith was good enough by just training training with guys like Matt Hume, Eric Paulson and Josh Barnett to surprise guys like Jamal Hill or Jiri who were both champions in this era. That's just the state of the LHW division today.

Maurice Smith did ok in combat sports. I hespect of heem.

Great thread my friend. I was also a big Maurice Smith fan.

 

[oski]

The Coleman thing! Just awesome as noone expected anything like that.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

View attachment 1054441

No pressure brather. Enjoy the highlight.

 

[axe wound]

No pressure brather. Enjoy the highlight.

I read it. I just hope you didn't expect me to.

 

[Bluesbreaker]

I like Smith, but he also broke my heart too many times.

Did he just show up to the Renzo fight for a paycheck?

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

I read it. I just hope you didn't expect me to.

In life you must be happy with nothing in order to be happy with everything.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

I like Smith, but he also broke my heart to many times.

Did he just show up to the Renzo fight for a paycheck?

Renzo was nothing to fuck with. The success of his BJJ students in MMA is no coincidence.

 

[axe wound]

word

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

Mo Smith was a beast, epic win against Mark Coleman, first elite striker to transition to MMA that really worked on their ground game that I can think of

 

[JayPettryMMA]

In life you must be happy with nothing in order to be happy with everything.

Thread deleted. Made again. Then deleted again. Then made a third time. What's the definition of insanity?

Also, for a multiple-time prior ban, you're on very thin ice. Please don't make things difficult for us.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Thread deleted. Made again. Then deleted again. Then made a third time. What's the definition of insanity?

Also, for a multiple-time prior ban, you're on very thin ice. Please don't make things difficult for us.

Spoke to @Zebra Cheeks he said it was alright. What's the issue brother?

 

[Shaolin Alan]

Smith beating Coleman shocked the MMA world at the time!!

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Mo Smith was my dude at HW in those days

Much hespect

 

[Bluesbreaker]

Renzo was nothing to fuck with. The success of his BJJ students in MMA is no coincidence.

Yeah, Renzo was good. But Mo beat much bigger and better guys around the same time.

That fight just looked like a kata.

 

[Ludwig von Mises]

Yeah, Renzo was good. But Mo beat much bigger and better guys around the same time.

That fight just looked like a kata.

Sometimes it be like that. The better guy doesn't always win. Same thing could be said about Renzo vs Oleg.

 

[VinceArch]

Only ever seen Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman once but it was a good fight.