Jimmy Smith explains why he turned down offer from ONE Championship

After his UFC contract expired, popular cage-side commentator Jimmy Smith was offered a gig with Singapore-based martial arts powerhouse ONE Championship. In the end, however, he accepted a job with North American promotion Invicta Fighting Championship instead.

Jimmy Smith explained why he made this decision in a recent post to his YouTube channel.

Apparently, ONE Championship required him to move to Singapore. While Smith wasn’t opposed to this idea in theory, the plan hit a snag when he learned that pitbulls are illegal in the Asian country. The former UFC and Bellator commentator is a proud pitbull owner and couldn’t bring himself to part with his canine family members.

“I was in talks with ONE FC right after I left the UFC, (and it’s) not easy to just pick up and move my life to Southeast Asia,” Smith said in his video (via MMA Junkie). “I’m doing my research and low and behold pit bulls are illegal in Singapore. They’re illegal to own, illegal to import.”

Jimmy Smith says he considered handing his dogs off to somebody else, but didn’t trust anyone enough.

“I have a really small family, and I have only two people I trust to take care of my dogs, and they were unable to do it,” Smith said. “So that was it. My dogs are family. I don’t give them up for anyone or anything.

“I don’t regret that at all,” Smith added. “At all. … It was just a choice I had to make about keeping my family together.”

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 4/28/2019.