MMA’s next? Fighter wowing after 5-second K.O. victory

The bell sounded and Larose native and amateur MMA fighter Maxx Smith stared down the cage and looked straight into the eyes of his opponent for this night, Jocquenee Bernard – a stocky, strong brawler who stared back at Smith with a vicious intensity that let everyone know that the battle was on.

On paper, the fight looked even. Bernard was 2-1 and was riding hot with two straight victories – both coming via first-round knockout. In each win, the fight was stopped before 30 seconds had passed.

Smith, too, was 2-1 at the time of the bout, which took place on June 21. But Smith didn’t have quite as good a taste in his mouth as his opponent. The last time he had been in the cage was the first loss of his career – a split decision defeat at the hands of Luke Latham in March. Leading up to the fight, Smith said he trained harder than he ever had in his life. As he rose from his stool and got ready to fight, the local said he knew it was time to unleash his frustrations and to avenge the only loss of his career.

“I was focused,” Smith said, remembering everything from that night like it was yesterday. “Any time you lose in sports, you want to come back and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. That’s where I was for that fight. I had trained hard, and I was ready to fight.”

The echo of the bell has silenced, and one second has now passed. Smith and Bernard surge from the corners of the cage to the middle, each now within striking distance of one another.

Another second passed. As custom in MMA bouts, Smith flared his left glove up into the air as a show of sportsmanship to wish his counterpart good luck. To return the favor, Bernard tapped Smith’s glove with his right hand, signifying the official start of the fight.

Another second passed. Smith circled around Bernard and lines him up to plan his attack. Smith said he watched film of his opponent before the fight and knew that he was aggressive – something he thought he could exploit.

“I had seen his film,” Smith said. “I knew he’d come straight forward. I knew he’d stand a little bit flat footed. I knew that he dropped his hands when he threw a punch. I had all of this in my mind, and I just said to myself, ‘Every time he comes wild at me, I’m going to step to the side, and I’m going to wail on him with a right.’”

Another second passes. It’s time for Smith to put his plan into action.

Wait. Scratch that. He sees an opening, and decided to make a split-second reaction. To do so, he remembered advice from a friend about Bernard’s defense.

“My friend Austin Plaisance told me before the fight, ‘Man, you’ve got long legs, so why don’t you throw a head kick?’” Smith said. “And I told him, ‘Man, I don’t know. I don’t really throw head kicks too much. But if it’s open, I’ll throw it – just for you.’”

The clock bled another second, and Plaisance was right – the head kick was wide open.

Smith reared back, planted his left foot, swung his hips open and threw his right foot into the air.

“Thud.”

“Smack.”

The kick landed flush – square onto Bernard’s temple – that’s the thud.

The smack was what comes next – Bernard’s lifeless body flopping onto the mat to mark the end of the fight.

Not knowing how to react to it all, Smith watched Bernard flop to the mat. Once it fully sunk in, he used his 35-inch vertical leap to his advantage and did a standing backflip to express his glee.

It only took five seconds and one kick – the only head kick he’s ever landed in his career. But it’s a knockout that Smith will remember forever as he looks to amp up his training to possibly turn pro sometime in the future.

“That’s the only head kick I’ve ever landed on anybody,” Smith said with a laugh. “And I’ll be honest. I know it’s the only time, because it’s the only time I’ve even thrown it. But that’s a night I’ll always remember. That was an adrenaline rush that I’ll never forget.”

‘I ALWAYS FOUGHT, BUT I NEVER HAD A CLUE I’D DO ANYTHING WITH IT’

Smith has been around fighting for exactly half of his 20-year life. The Larose native said he first did some boxing training with his father when he was 10.

The training was mostly informal, and it was never in a gym. Smith said the training was one part for fun and another part to stay in shape for other sports. Smith played a slew of youth sports as a child, most notably football and basketball.

“I always did it, but it was never anything I thought about or cared too much about,” Smith said. “I never had any intentions at all of doing anything in the sport of boxing.

“I always fought, but I never had a clue I’d do anything with it. It was always like a backyard thing – never anything done with any urgency.”

But at 15, Smith said he got introduced to MMA through his cousin Bennie, and learning that sport generated his interest.

“I started to learn a little bit about the training and I started to learn about the fighters and it just caught my interest,” Smith said. “I always just love how inside of that cage, those guys just went to war. I loved the physicality of it all, but even then, I never thought anything was going to come of it. I played football in high school at the time. I only did the training to sort-of cross-train a little bit to stay fit for football, you know?”

The training worked, and Smith shined. He was an All-District defensive lineman for South Lafourche High School in 2011 – easily one of the most agile and disruptive players in our area throughout that season.

Smith graduated in 2012 and stayed out of the athletic scene for about a year after his graduation. But he couldn’t escape for too long. About a year after walking across the stage with his cap and his gown, he was locked in a wire fence cage fighting with a guy trying to tear his head off.

I TOLD HIM, ‘I’LL GET IN THERE AND MIX IT UP; I’M NOT GOING TO BACK DOWN FROM ANYBODY’

A little more than a year passed after Smith’s high school graduation, and the calendar now read the middle of July 2013.

Smith was working for Danos at the time, when a co-worker saw him, noticed his physique and asked him if he had ever done any MMA training.

“I told him that I had done some work but never anything organized or anything too serious,” Smith said. “So he then asked me, ‘OK, so do you want to fight in two weeks?’

“I didn’t know what to think. I told him ‘I’ll get in there and mix it up; I’m not going to back down from anybody. If you want me to spar, I’ll spar.’”

So after doing a few sparring sessions, the co-worker brought up the idea of Smith fighting at an amateur show on Aug. 9, 2013 – just a few weeks after getting his first official work in.

Because of work obligations, Smith said he only got two official training sessions in before his first amateur fight with Luis Lopez.

But it didn’t matter. Smith’s natural talent shined through, and he scored a submission win in the second round.

“I only had a few hours of training. I was just winging it. I was just saying to myself, ‘Let’s do it, man,’” he said. “It was like football to me. I just had to get in the right mindset and get myself focused. I went in there, and I did what I had to do. I was nervous, but I got it done.”

In his second fight, Smith was successful again, beating Frank Taylor via strikes.

That set up the local’s first loss, which came on March 29, 2014 – the setback versus Latham. It was a loss that Smith owns, but it’s one that he said wouldn’t have occurred if not for unforeseen circumstances.

“I got attacked by a pitbull a few days before my fight,” Smith said. “That sort of messed up my training. I had to cut more than 10 pounds the day before the fight, and it just sort of threw everything out of whack.”

But in life, sometimes, the best test is how one responds from adversity, and Smith proved that he could recover from a loss in his five-second win over Bernard. He built on that win on July 12, scoring a unanimous decision win against John Charo.

Smith will look to make it three-straight wins on Oct. 4 against Carlos Tailvera at the Caged Warrior Championship 5 show, which will take place in Patterson.

Looking cut and seemingly in top-notch condition, Smith said he is in elite shape – ready for a knockout win. But win, lose or draw, he said he plans to take some time off after this fight so that he can spend time studying the sport and making a decision about the future.

“I want to learn more,” he said. “I want to get more disciplined. I want to study martial arts a little more. Right now, I’m just a boxer and a wrestler and I’m sort of just fighting and surviving out there. But I want to learn as much as I can and try and better myself in the sport.”

“If I can do that, I’d love to explore making the decision to go pro. That’s definitely an option that I have at this time.”

If he does, it’d be a big step up in competition. But as he’s shown in the amateurs, Smith is capable of kick-starting himself to the top.

Literally.

Larose native Maxx Smith poses during a training session this week. Smith is the talk of local MMA circles after scoring a five-second knockout win this summer. 

CASEY GISCLAIR | THE TIMES