From Sherdog:
"At first, I was kind of irritated that Strikeforce wanted to do an immediate rematch," said Smith. "I feel like if I'd beaten (Le) up for two-plus rounds before getting knocked out, I wouldn't have gotten the immediate rematch Cung has. It's not like this was a title fight where an immediate rematch is a clause in the contract or something like that.
"But now I want to prove that I wasn't just lucky to be able to come back and knock him out," continued Smith. "I was irritated when Strikeforce first suggested this fight, but now I'm excited even though it's a high-risk, low-reward fight. If I go out and beat Cung up, then maybe he wasn't the MMA fighter people thought he'd be. But if he beats me, then I lost to a fighter I just beat."
Smith's manager went on to talk about why they didn't want the immediate re-match, basically citing that another win over Le doesn't do much for Smith's career. He's probably right. However, he was getting handled before Le gassed and faded in the last fight allowing Smith the opportunity to get the KO. Le was also coming off a long hiatus with movies as he took on Smith the first time. With no distractions, will Smith be able to take out a focused Cung Le for the second time?
SBN coverage of Strikeforce and M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Werdum
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