Anthony Smith (photo via UFC)

By FCF Staff

It remains to be see what’s next for Anthony Smith in his light-heavyweight run, but the former middleweight has named Jimi Manuwa as a possible opponent.

Smith quickly finished former champ “Shogun” Rua at UFC FN 134 this past weekend, and proceeded to call for a bout with Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 227. Since then, however, it’s been confirmed that Gustafsson has withdraw from the card due to an injury.

After being notified of that fact, Smith had this to say about Manuwa, while discussing his next move (quote via MMA Fighting):

“I saw Jimi Manuwa out there,” Smith said. “Jimi’s a great fighter. He’s a hell of a striker, he’s powerful, and he’s ranked pretty high in the division. I’m not 100 percent sure. I’ll let the UFC and my management figure that out. If not Gustafsson, then I don’t know.

“I called my shot after the Rashad fight, that I wanted to fight at UFC Lincoln, and that didn’t work out, so I don’t want to put my name on anything yet, but I think there’s that Denver card that would be pretty cool. I train in Denver, that’s where my team is, I spend a lot of time there so I think Denver would be cool. We’re just gonna enjoy this one for now, and it sounds like the Gus thing is off the table, so we’ll just go from there.”

Manuwa is coming off consecutive losses to Volkan Oezdemir and Jan Blachowicz, after knocking out Corey Anderson and Ovince Saint Preux.