Glover Teixeira’s coach would’ve stopped Anthony Smith fight sooner – but it’s complicated

Glover Teixeira’s coach would’ve stopped Anthony Smith fight sooner – but it’s complicated

John Hackleman says he would have stopped the Glover Teixeira vs. Anthony Smith fight at UFC on ESPN+ 29, but also said people with a similar view should cut Smith’s corner some slack.

Hackleman was in Teixeira’s corner for the fight, as his man stopped Smith late in Round 5 of the UFC on ESPN+ 29 main event after an encounter that saw “Lionheart” suffer a prolonged beating.

Smith’s corner from Factory X Muay Thai was criticized for not throwing in the towel to protect their fighter, who suffered facial fractures and had his teeth smashed, before referee Jason Herzog finally decided to stop the fight late in Round 5.

Herzog also took heat for letting the fight drag out, and later took full responsibility for his handling of the situation.

But Hackleman, who’s had no issue throwing in the towel for his fighters in the past, thinks both Herzog and Smith’s corner should receive the benefit of the doubt.

“I think the referee did a great job, first of all,” Hackleman told MMA Junkie. “I think there were times where it looked stoppable, but people gotta remember, I’m the stopper. Everybody that knows me, even the referees, I stop fights with my fighters very quickly, and too quickly I think sometimes, so it doesn’t just show caring for the fighters. Sometimes I fight to stop the fights quickly enough where my fighter probably would have recovered and maybe had a second chance.

“And sometimes that means double their purse because they didn’t win, they don’t get a win bonus, and sometimes it means taking them out of a title contention, so stopping the fight has a lot of ramifications. I stop them too early, and I admit that, and my fighters know that, and if they have a problem with that, they can have someone else work their corner. So then there’s stopping it perfectly – like how many people do things perfectly? Sometimes it’s gonna err on a little too late and, in my case, sometimes it errs on too soon.”

Hackleman thinks Smith still had a fighting chance and, while he admits he would have thrown in the towel if it were his fighter, it may not necessarily have been the right move.

“Watching it from where I was watching it, my vantage point was, Anthony Smith was still dangerous,” Hackleman said. “He could have stopped it in the third round, but don’t forget: Anthony Smith nailed Glover a couple of times in the fourth round. So one of those punches could have easily knocked out a fighter. So if he stopped it in the third, now he would have never had a chance to win it in the fourth. So are you stopping it too soon or too late? I don’t know.

“I wasn’t in his corner, and I know this for a fact. I know Marc Montoya loves his fighters and treats them like family but, with that said, I would have stopped it. But that’s not always the right way. All I know is, I wasn’t in his corner, I wasn’t watching it like that. I was watching it thinking he’s still dangerous till the end, as Glover’s cornerman.”