VIDEO | Jimmy Smith Not Sold on Conor McGregor’s Willingness to Save UFC 222

“The idea that someone as big as Conor McGregor, with as much to lose and would take a fight against Frankie Edgar on short notice, is unlikely. I mean, you want to pimp him coming back for as many months as you possibly could and he knows that, the idea that, ‘oh I was willing to step in on short notice and not give the UFC and myself the time to maximize this opportunity’ is unlikely. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m sure it’s possible.”

UFC 222 is coming up this next Saturday and it was originally supposed to be headlined by the featherweight champion, Max Holloway as he attempted to defend his title against former UFC lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar. Holloway was forced out of the bout with an injury and according to a recent social media post from the lightweight champion, Conor McGregor, he threw his name into the hat for a chance to save the card.

New UFC commentator and analyst, the former voice of Bellator, Jimmy Smith is fitting right into his roles with the new company. Along with his take on McGregor’s antics, he also discussed the controversy from last Saturday’s UFC on Fox 28 main event:

“If that knee [in the Jeremy Stephens vs Josh Emmett fight] had landed the way it did at a different point in the fight, Dan [Miragliotta] almost certainly stops it and says ‘don’t throw that’. Even if doesn’t land he’s going to stop him and be like, ‘don’t do that’. That was a fight-ending sequence. That fight was about to be over and Dan had to decide right there, is a knee that barely grazed him…enough to literally alter the course of the fight. Because if he stops it right there, A. not only does he give Josh Emmett a much-needed break in that sequence, if Josh Emmett says, ‘I can’t continue’ you get a DQ or a no contest when Jeremy Stephens about to obviously finish the fight which he did. There was a lot of gravity on that situation and Dan had to make a choice.”

Smith also answered a question that many fans have been curious about.

“Yeah, I do [expect to work with Joe Rogan on commentary]. We don’t have anything announced yet officially. They told me when I first signed up, ‘you’re gonna be working a lot of different combinations. You’ll be working three-man booths, two-man booths, everywhere we can use you we’re gonna throw ya. Because we know you’ve done a lot of different stuff, the countdown shows, the desk stuff, we’re gonna use you for a lot of different things.’ So just about every combination is going to happen at some point. So yeah, I definitely will be [commentating with Rogan] and it’s gonna be fun.”

What are your thoughts on Smith’s takes? Which event do you expect we’ll first see him and Rogan working together in the booth?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/27/2018.