The first big Knock-out of 2025 came from Jacobe Smith, a fresh fighter of the series of competitors, who threw a left hand through the head of Preston Parsons during a night of UFC combat on January 11. We say “through” because the blow was so clean that, well, it was like the hot proverbial knife through butter. In fact, this left hand continued, as if the head of Parsons was not even its final destination.
Six long months later, Smith finally returned to the UFC 317, where he will face Niko Price on the preliminary card on Saturday evening. This punch to launch the year, it turns out only money. Smith finds himself as much as a favorite of 25 to 1 on BETMGM on an enemy with nine times more fights in the UFC.
Advertisement
And if you speak to “Cobe”, as we know, you have the idea that it is one of the best kept secrets of the Welter weight division.
“I understand what [Price] East and I understand my abilities, “says Smith,” And if you know me – if you have followed me throughout my wrestling career – I could fight against a trash opponent or the country’s n ° 1 guy, and one of these games could be close. It’s more than focusing on me and what I want to do – and once I discover it, it doesn’t stop me.
Confident? Maybe, but bursting out the seams could be more like that. Smith is anxious to see the fans to see what Vegas already knows – is that he is a black horse to make serious noise in a division that is already full of contenders.
To understand this black horse status, you must work back.
Advertisement
Smith lives in Crandall, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. He trains in Fortis MMA, which is half an hour from his house, and close enough to his combat roots, because he was a college wrestler off competition with Oklahoma State University. It was his wrestling boyfriend (and Bellator’s veteran) Kyle Crutchmer who presented Smith to Daniel Cormier, another cowboy of the OSU.
Both have become rapid friends.
Smith trained with Cormier and Khabib Nurmagomedov in California whenever he can. At one point, he was even signed to fight at FC Eagle in Nurmagomedov, but the pandemic prevented him from making his debut. However, he ran to a professional MMA record 10-0, including two victories so far under the UFC umbrella, one of which came to the aforementioned series of competitors. The wrestling pedigree is in its rear pocket.
Advertisement
But the hands could be the difference manufacturers.
These hands, he said, came from training with his older brother, Lonnie Wilson, who was a Golden Gloves boxing champion. It was suspended or hung.
“He was also three or four years older than me,” he says. “And my dad was so hype, he has always been:” Lift your ass, let’s train. I’m like, guy, I don’t train.
This is where we work back more to understand where Smith is now. Smith’s father was a football player who was drafted by the Oakland Raiders, and his mother was a volleyball player at the Junior Olympic Games. Athletes all around him, but Smith did not train because he couldn’t. At least not before the age of about 12 years of age. He was born with asthma. It was so serious that the doctors told him that he would not be able to compete.
Advertisement
“I couldn’t go up the stairs to go to my room when I was a child because it would make me,” he said. “My parents didn’t know what to do. I was in the hospital almost my whole life, I couldn’t breathe. I remember having been a child and the times were so hard that I would do it – I knew how to make myself unconscious because I could not breathe in my normal state. So, I knew how to put myself thoroughly.
It was a progressive escalation of the loss of his breath that goes up the steps to reach the point where he could run. Then he could hang out with other children in sport. Then he could box with his brother. Then, he was able to find the wind to start distinguishing himself as an art.
Jacobe Smith walks away after a direct elimination victory against Preston Parsons during his inception in UFC.
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
“I started with football, and I did the continuation, then the fight was the Christmas season and it was about the last of this year,” he said. “But I did everything. As soon as the doctors released me, I tried the football track, football, basketball and the fight. And the fight was what I fell in love.”
Advertisement
These days, Smith sees his first difficulties with asthma as a silver lining to his supreme packaging. He says that it “calls” him to the place where he has “five or 10 steps” on the ground.
It was a mad race that could not breathe when I was a child to overcome the opponents on wrestling carpets. His path was hard enough for him to consider the professional MMA as almost a stay.
“The fight is much more difficult,” he says. “It’s just much more maintenance due to each weekend, I gain weight, every weekend, I cut this weight and cut my body, exhaust it.
“But apart from that, I have the impression of having mastered the fights in one direction, where I can exert this pressure on people without them being able to put me back on me. My biggest obstacle is to dodge the strikes before entering where I want to get. My instincts are a fire.”
Advertisement
Confident? Perhaps, but carrying a chip on his shoulder could be more like that. This Knockout that he scored on Parsons – one thing of pure and violent beauty – did not come with a bonus, after all.
“No sir, this is not the case,” he says. “I feel like that, I mean, first Knock-out of the year, 2025, I was the first knockout on the map, and they gave it to the other person [Cesar Almeida]. I looked at the card and everything – it should have been me, but no one seemed to me as skillful as I am. Everyone was sloppy.
This weekend is another chance. The price has shown a propensity to stand in your pocket and trade. During a long section, he was a festive or family fighter. The opportunity will be there for Smith, who is about to present himself on the Welter weight radar.
If he does what he did in Parsons, people could talk about the black horse, Jacobe Smith.
Advertisement
“I am so used to being looked at and not having given what I deserve, that I don’t care what it is,” says Smith. “I could take the most difficult road. No one can do anything with me. I say that you throw me one of them from the Russians and see if their struggle can stay with mine or if I have to count on this.
“But I do not think that these regular attackers have anything for me. These regular jiu-jitsu guys will have nothing for me because I manage my energy so well. You will not catch up with me or that I struggle for something I need, because I am ahead of the curve.”
