Anthony Smith isn’t convinced Rodolfo Bellato was truly knocked out by Paul Craig at UFC Atlanta on Saturday.
Bellato (12-2, 1 NC MMA) appeared to be knocked out cold by an upkick from Craig (17-9-1, 1 NC) in the final seconds of Round 1 during their featured preliminary bout. However, because Bellato was kneeling when the kick landed, it was deemed illegal, and the fight was ruled a no contest.
Former UFC light heavyweight contender Anthony Smith questioned the authenticity of Bellato’s reaction and suggested he may have exaggerated the impact of the foul.
“It was a great fight up until the way that it ended all weird,” Smith said during the UFC Atlanta post fight show. “Paul Craig was really forcing the takedowns, he ends up shooting the takedown, pulls guard, the round ends and he throws an upkick while Bellato, he has a knee down. So that’s an illegal strike. I’m going to be hard here. I’m going to be hard on Bellato.
“As the upkick happens, he looks to the referee to see if the referee realized that was illegal. He looks right to him. You see his eyes come to the referee to protest and then realizes maybe I can get a free win. Lays there, pretends he’s unconscious, jolts back awake allegedly. Referee comes over. That is a man who is awake, pretends to grapple the referee as if he’s unconscious, trying to get a cheap win. I’ve been doing this a long time and I know what it looks like when somebody’s faking it.”
“He’s going to look to the referee, ‘Oh my god that’s illegal! Oh I better pretend I’m unconscious,” Smith said doing play-by-play while rewatching the fight. “The jolt back awake. This is the worst performance I’ve ever seen. The referee knows this is not really happening. I feel really bad for Paul Craig.
“We’re laughing about it and joking because it is so silly what happened here with Rodolfo Bellato and Paul Craig but Paul Craig, although he did break the rules. We have to address that. He did break the rules. It wasn’t intentional. But that’s a fight that seemingly could have continued. I’m not going to pretend I’m in his head and can tell how bad it actually did hurt. He definitely was not unconscious and hurt as he was pretending to be. That’s for sure.”
“I do feel for Paul Craig,” Smith said. “He worked really hard to push this fight a whole other month to ultimately not have a result.”
