UFC Vegas 123’s Jacobe Smith: ‘I’ve wrestled with Islam [Makhachev], and I will out-wrestle him’

For those who are willing, life can move pretty fast in the UFC. On Sept. 24, Jacobe Smith didn’t have a fight booked. A little over a month later, he’s getting ready to compete for the second time in three weeks. 

Smith agreed to jump on the UFC 332 card last month to face Bruce Whitehead on nine days’ notice, needing only 92 seconds to dispatch the UFC debutante. Then, when Carlos Leal fell out of his fight with veteran Randy Brown for this weekend’s UFC Vegas 123 card, Smith jumped at the chance to stand in again. This time on a dozen days’ notice.

Who needs fight camps when you can fade people like “Cobe?” 

“I’m not hesitant at all,” Smith told Uncrowned this week when asked about the quick turnaround giving him pause. “I could be fighting anybody. Ain’t no hesitation, I’m ready.”

If you know anything about Smith, you know that he’s … let’s say confident in his abilities. Before he fought Nico Price in 2025, with just one official UFC fight to his name at the time, he told me, “I feel like I’ve mastered fighting to a sense, where I can put that pressure on people without them being able to put it back on me. My biggest obstacle is dodging the strikes before I get into where I want to get. My instincts are f***ing fire.” 

At the time, even though he knocked Preston Parsons’ jaw into the concession stands in his UFC debut, it felt like he might’ve been getting ahead of himself a little bit. But since then, Smith has rampaged through the competition, putting away Price (via second-round submission), Josiah Harrell (first-round TKO) and then Whitehead (first-round TKO). Including his Contender Series win over Christien Savole, Smith has made light work of everyone he’s faced.

Jacobe Smith is already 4-0 with four finishes in the UFC welterweight division.Alex Goodlett via Getty Images

This has all led to considerable fanfare for the 30-year-old Smith, a blue-chip welterweight prospect who lives in a suburb of Dallas. He trains at Fortis MMA, which is half an hour from his house, and near enough to his combat roots, as he was a standout collegiate wrestler at Oklahoma State. His wrestling friend Kyle Crutchmer introduced him to OSU alum Daniel Cormier a few years back, and Smith has traveled to California to train with “DC,” Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev.   

When gauging his wrestling against such company, perhaps it’s easier to understand Smith’s baseline confidence. He stacks himself against the best. That’s why he believes he is ahead of the welterweight field in just his sixth UFC fight, even if he hasn’t had to resort to his wrestling in the strictest sense thus far in the UFC.

“I’m prepared for sure, but I’m levels above,” he says. “I haven’t ran into that guy that has the potential that I have. I’m the best wrestler in this division and I mean, hands down, none of it. I’ve wrestled with Islam, and I will out-wrestle him, [and everyone else] from the champ all the way until to the last dude they signed, whoever he is. I’m out-wrestling every last one of them. I’m not the best wrestler in the world, but in the UFC at welterweight, if they was, ‘Like no punching, it’s only wrestling,’ there’s not one guy in this division that would beat me.”

Here is where he roots out an asterisk from his bag of tricks.

“Now with that being said, now we’ve got to implement all this extra stuff,” he says. “But as I’m doing that, I don’t forget where I’m the best at. And that just puts me ahead and I’m confident with saying that.”

The “extra stuff” is what has been catching people’s attention. In his last fight, Smith never gave Whitehead a chance. He was like a bowstring that had been pulled back for eight long months and then let go. It was such an explosive swarm that it looked very much like a mismatch, a showcase of power. Smith came out in such good condition that he was able to take another fight just three weeks later against a proven veteran like Brown, this time in a co-main event spot behind Renato Moicano and Tom Nolan. 

“Brown’s a long, rangy opponent that’s going to give me my toughest test up until this point,” he says. “But I felt him [before], so I mean, I’m ready for whatever he’s got to bring. He came out to the White House card when I was supposed to fight Kevin Holland. I flew out there with [Cormier] and Randy was helping me get ready for Kevin and giving me spar rounds and stuff like that. 

“So I mean, I know exactly what’s going to go down. It’s just, how do I want to do it? Do I want to get in there and potentially try for this $100,000 bonus, or do I want to get in there and get him out of there? It’s just a feel thing for me when I’m in the cage.”

Right now the welterweight field is as stacked as any in the UFC, starting with Makhachev — Uncrowned’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter — at the top, and followed by Carlos Prates and Michael Morales, who’ll be fighting for the interim 170-pound title at UFC 336 in January. Though Smith isn’t currently ranked, he knows a win over Brown gets him into a fight with a top-15 fighter. 

After that, it’s an escalation that he feels is inevitable. 

“I’d say [I’m] close to 10 steps ahead of these dudes,” he says. “I’ll be a lot to reckon with for any of these guys. And I mean, I’m just going to continue to show it regardless of who’s across from me. It is inevitable. No one’s going to stop my plan that I’ve got. And I’m working so hard that I’m making luck become real.

“It’s not luck. This is real deal stuff.  Let’s see how they handle it.”

Smith will once again be installed as the betting favorite on Saturday, a position he’s used to. He’s been the favorite in every fight he’s had so far in the UFC. If there’s external pressure, it comes from the bettors who expect him to hit the under every time out. It’s the burden of any finisher going, to hear about the parlays centered on him. 

“I hear about it more than I even like, man,” he says. “It’s to a point where it’s just like, ‘Hey, yeah, let’s make some money. Send me some. Send me some!’ I don’t get the reasoning behind it, honestly. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not benefiting off of it.”

But if there’s internal pressure, it comes from waiting. He’s used to be on the prelims, fighting early and getting it over with. Now he’s a co-main event, meaning he’ll be forced to sit through an entire card waiting for it to be his turn. That part is torture for a guy who, over the last month, hasn’t even needed a fight camp to be ready to roll.  

“I hate waiting around and stuff,” he says. “I’m scheduled to fight this dude, this dude’s over there somewhere lurking. I’m still waiting. Everybody’s anticipating. I’m anticipating. I got to focus in on relaxing, forcing myself to relax because I’m hyped. It’s fight day. I got to save this energy. I’m focused. I got to work to save this energy and that’s a job in itself.”

Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.