LAS VEGAS – Cameron Smotherman was in Saudi Arabia to corner a teammate when he got a call that modified his life.
Just a couple of days ahead of UFC Fight Night 245, Smotherman (12-4 MMA, 1-0 UFC) received a call from his manager asking him about his weight because Jake Hadley’s original opponent, Brady Hiestand, could not compete.
Smotherman did every little thing he could to make sure the chance wouldn’t pass him.
“I run to a different hotel to envision my weight, after which I’m like, “Oh, this sh*ts a little bit heavy,’” Smotherman said with fun during a post-fight news conference. “I’m not about to let this likelihood go to waste, and so I take an image, but I grabbed the wall, and I just gave myself a little bit DC boost and took the image, sent it.”
Smotherman said he immediately went to begin cutting weight. A couple of minutes later, Smotherman received word he was in to face Hadley (11-4 MMA, 3-4 UFC), and needed to get on a plane immediately. He didn’t know who he can be facing, but he packed his bags and let his teammate know he was leaving.
“They were like, ‘Well, you understand you’re not going to get here until Wednesday night?’ Smotherman said. “So, I’m like, ‘I don’t give a f*ck once I get here. I could get here Friday morning, and I’m going to f*cking make the burden.’ I came Wednesday night and needed to cut 20 kilos or some sh*t in a day and a half.”
It was all value it. Smotherman weighed in at 135.5 kilos for the bantamweight bout against Hadley and fought to a formidable unanimous decision win as a large short-notice underdog.
All the things moved so fast that things really didn’t begin to hit Smotherman until he was in the course of a post-fight interview within the octagon. It was then he could barely contain himself that he was now a winning UFC fighter, a dream that seemed bleak after being finished on Dana White’s Contender series last August.
That loss to Charalampos Grigoriou nearly sent Smotherman down a unique path, but he stuck fighting, though it was hard. He won his next three fights on the regional scene, stopping two of those opponents.
Despite winning three in a row, a path to the UFC didn’t seem realistic. So, how did he stay positive after the DWCS loss?
“Easy answer: You don’t stay positive,” Smotherman said. “I used to be negative as f*ck. I used to be about to quit day-after-day. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. It was a running joke on the gym, ‘Oh, you understand Cameron, he’s all the time about to quit.’ I’m like, because I’m, motherf*cker! I’m not about to only – for me, I like fighting, but I don’t just love the sh*t to where I’m not about to only be fighting to fight.
“I’m fighting because I believe I even have a future in it, and I feel like I can do something with it. But yeah, it was hard as f*ck. I used to be depressed for a 12 months and I didn’t even understand it. … But I also realized within the back, that the rationale I desired to quit a lot is because I used to be afraid of failing.”
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