UFC women’s bantamweight Leslie Smith spoke to MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi after her coach Cesar Gracie posted on Facebook about a brawl she got into with a sexual harasser outsider a California nightclub. Gracie detailed how Smith came to a friend’s defense after a man groped the woman outside a club and ended up brawling with him.
According to Smith, she was out with fellow UFC women’s bantamweight Heather Clark and two friends outside The Mint in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley when a passing man grabbed Smith’s female friend’s butt. Smith tells the tale.
“I followed him and I was like, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,'” Smith said. “And he was like, ‘I can do whatever I want.’ And I was like, ‘No, you can’t.’ Then he turned around and spit on me and threw a big right hand.
“He had my hair, so I pushed him against a building and then I double-legged him,” Smith said. “I took him down against the cage and then I started to take his back, but his hair was really gross and it didn’t quite feel right.
“I let go of that and just dropped elbows on him,” Smith said. “He turned over and I just dropped elbows on him from mount against the building until he started saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then I stopped as soon as he said sorry, because that was really the only thing I went over there for.
“It has given my friend and all of my female friends so much pleasure to know that happened,” Smith said. “It’s not an unusual thing for a woman, a good-looking woman in public to get grabbed and fondled by strangers. At first, I was trying to keep the whole thing on the down low and not say anything about it, but after seeing how happy it has made so many women, I changed my mind.”
Smith said no police were involved in the incident.
Smith is recovering from meniscus surgery and won’t be cleared to train for at least another six weeks. Her last fight was a loss to Jessica Eye in November that saw Smith’s cauliflower ear burst in a bloody mess, forcing the bout to be stopped.
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