One of Anthony Smith’s most memorable fights won’t show up on his MMA record.
The UFC star landed in an all-out brawl early Sunday morning after a stranger — later identified as Luke Haberman — unlawfully entered his Omaha home. Smith recalled the “terrifying” experience, which occurred around 4 a.m. local time, while speaking Monday with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani.
“I didn’t know what he had,” Smith said. “Typically people don’t break into your house in the middle of the night for any good reasons. I’m expecting that I’m gonna hear a gunshot or he’s gonna stab me. Like he’s got something. I figure I’ve got about two minutes before whatever he’s got takes me out.”
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Smith lives with his wife, mother-in-law and three daughters, none of whom were injured in the incident.
The fight, which took place after Smith’s wife woke him up and notified him there was a man in the house, turned out to be far more difficult than the 31-year-old mixed martial artist expected.
“No normal human is able to fight like that,” Smith told Helwani. “I’m by no means the baddest dude on the planet. But he’s a regular Joe and I had a hard time dealing with him. And he took everything that I gave him — every punch, every knee, every elbow. He took every single one of them and kept fighting me.”
Smith said his mother-in-law brought him a kitchen knife at one point during the scrap, although it did little to deter Haberman from fighting back. When police finally arrived after several minutes, according to Smith, a computer room was left covered in blood.
“I’m not lying when I say it was one of the toughest fight I’ve had in my whole life,” said Smith (32-14), who fought Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight championship at UFC 235 in March 2019. “I went into that fight ready to die. Nobody smart breaks into a house in the middle of the night unarmed. … When they break in at night, it’s to hurt people.”
Fortunately, Smith and his family walked away unscathed, even though the intruder (who Smith estimates weighed about 170 pounds) gave the UFC fighter (who fights at 205 pounds) all he could handle in the wee hours of the morning.
According to Smith, who still plans to fight Glover Teixeira as scheduled on April 25, Haberman even told him, “Hey man, I’m sorry” after the dust settled.
Haberman was arrested and charged with first-degree criminal trespass, according to ESPN.com.
