Sports

Stephen A. Smith Says He Doesn’t Want To See ‘Women Fighting In The Octagon’

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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Stephen A. Smith said he doesn’t want to see “women fighting in the Octagon” in a discussion about women being hired for higher positions in the sports world.

“First of all, I love it,” the ESPN broadcaster explained during his appearance with Larry Wilmore on the “Black on the Air” podcast. The comments were noted by MMAFighting.com in a piece published Tuesday. (RELATED: Kevin Durant Will Sign With The Brooklyn Nets For $164 Million, Kyrie Irving Will Get $141 Million)

“I think there’s an awful lot of women who are incredibly qualified to do the jobs they’re doing,” he added. “Where I jump off the bandwagon is where they try to engage physically.” (RELATED: Stephen A. Smith Is Reportedly About To Become The Highest Paid ESPN Talent At $10 Million)

“For example, I don’t ever want to see a woman boxing a man,” Smith continued. “I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see a woman in the UFC fighting a man — even though there are some women out there that will kick the dude’s butt.”

“When I think about pugilistic sports, I don’t like to see women involved in that at all. I just don’t like it. I wouldn’t pass, I wouldn’t promote legislating laws to prohibit them from doing so, but I don’t want to see women punching each other in the face. I don’t want to see women fighting in the octagon and stuff like that. That’s just me,” he said.

The broadcaster went on to explain that one of the reasons he wouldn’t want to see women fighting men is because he wouldn’t “ever want to give men a license to believe that it’s all right to be physical with a woman.”

“You don’t want to do that,” he told Wilmore.

The piece noted, that one of the biggest fights in the UFC in 2020 was the strawweight title fight between Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248, which scored the MMA Fighting’s Fight of the Year award.