Anthony Smith is currently on a two-fight streak winning, with five victories in his last six bouts. All of them were knockouts.

As he heads into Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 138, which he’ll headline opposite recent title challenger Volkan Oezdemir (15-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC), it’s safe to say Smith (30-13 MMA, 6-3 UFC) is at a pretty great spot in his career – a spot that could even, feasibly, lead to a 205-pound title shot in the not-so-distant future.

But if you go into Smith’s Twitter profile, you’ll notice that the pinned tweet that sits atop it doesn’t highlight one of the many ups the former middleweight has experienced recently. Rather, it’s a picture of his last down: a knockout loss to Thiago “Marreta” Santos at UFC Fight Night 125, in February.

The fact that that tweet is still there is no oversight.

“I left that there on purpose,” Smith told MMAjunkie Radio. “That was one of the hardest losses I ever took. And that moment, when that picture was taken? I was in one of the lowest places I’ve been in my career. Things were going so well. I was kind of on top of the world up to that point. I just felt like I was really coming along. Then that weight cut happened, and the trip to Brazil, I just couldn’t find my – it was one of the first times thad I’d ever been in a fight and I was a little bit lost. I couldn’t (expletive) pull it together, you know what I mean?

“I got hit with that spinning wheel kick at the very beginning, and I just couldn’t shake it. I was just shook a little bit. Maybe not shook, but I was just spinning, the world was just (expletive) out of control and I just couldn’t pull it together. In that moment, when that picture was taken, I was lost, and I didn’t know what the (expletive) I was going to do.”

That sounds like exactly the type of feeling that most people would want to forget. But Smith? He wanted to remember it.

“You can’t define yourself by a loss or whatever, but you also can’t define yourself by a win,” Smith said. “Whether I beat Volkan or not, or I move on to a title fight or not, this train’s going to keep rolling, regardless. And I don’t want to live too high up on that horse and feel like I’m the greatest and miss out on feeling that loss, because that loss was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.

“(It) forced me to move up to 205, and because of that I was able to grow technically and mentally so much. I’ve got to remember that (expletive), you know?”

Since moving up to the UFC’s light heavyweight division, Smith has gone unbeaten with two impressive knockout wins. Not only that, he got them over two former champions in Rashad Evans and Mauricio Rua. The win over the latter, which also marked Smith’s first UFC headliner, was given “Performance of the Night” honors.

Apparently, that’s just the type of thing a “fat and happy” man can do when he doesn’t have to constantly weigh himself throughout camp.

“I wish that everyone in the UFC could feel the way that I feel right now, moving into fight week and moving into the fight,” Smith said. “Just the quality of life is so much better, and the things that you can do in a training camp when you’re happy and you’re not miserable, it’s just amazing. The amount of growth that you can have in such a short period of time but just changing one thing that seemingly is not that big of a deal, but turns out that it makes a huge difference.”

Smith may not have been feeling that great back at middleweight, but he didn’t exactly look terrible. Even the loss to Santos, which snapped a three-knockout winning streak, ended up coming with the consolation prize of a “Fight of the Night” bonus.

Smith has, in fact, only lost twice his return to the UFC in 2016 – and in his most recent 15 fights overall. Of those, 13 were wins, and only two required the judges’ scorecards. For better or worse, you know what Smith will never fail to produce, and that’s excitement.

In a volatile sport like MMA, where all the goodwill you’ve earned can quite suddenly disappear with one bad day at the office, the pressure of constantly raising the bar that you set for yourself can be a heavy burden to carry.

Is Smith at all worried about that?

Well, yes and no. As cliched as he knows that may sound, Smith is on a self-improvement mission, so he does demand of himself that he shows up with fresh tools with each new fight. As far as putting on exciting performances, though, Smith isn’t sweating it.

Why would he, anyway, when it would take more effort for him to do the alternative?

“I think it really comes down to who you are as a person and who you are deep in your soul,” Smith said. “Are you the person that’s going to do the bare minimum to stay away from damage and win the points battle? Or are you someone that’s just going to jump in the fire, and if you get burned, you get burned? That tends to be more my style. I don’t think I could be a quote-unquote point fighter, or someone who’s just trying to grind down decisions.

“I don’t think I could do that. I don’t think I have the patience for that. If the gameplan was to grind Volkan out, after the first or second round I’d just get sick of that (expletive) and I’d just want a firefight. I don’t think I could do that. As far as being better, the pressure is definitely there. But as far as exciting, I think that’s just who I am.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 138, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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