Elijah Smith | Poised For The Spotlight

The deer in the headlights look before a UFC debut can usually be seen through phone lines, but there’s none of that from Colorado’s Smith, who has been around the sport for much of his life, thanks to his dad, a veteran of The Ultimate Fighter 17 with one UFC fight under his belt. But MMA wasn’t expected to be the path for “Swift,” a wrestler and football player in high school who hoped to make his mark on the gridiron in junior college. 

The COVID-19 pandemic changed those plans in 2020, and soon Smith was in the Victory MMA gym with his father.

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“I didn't think that this would end up being my calling,” he said. “Say COVID didn't happen and I went out and played football, to be honest, I was always good at football, but I just don't think I had the size to make it to the next level past college. I feel like I would've found my way into MMA, but I just think I would've found it later on in my career. So with COVID, I just found it. I was like, you know what, I'm still athletic, I'm young, let's put this athleticism towards something and not just waste it, because I knew I had talent. I just had to figure out where I was going to put that talent into.”

He put into the family business, and was a quick study, winning all five of his amateur bouts before turning pro in August of 2022 with a second-round stoppage of Roger Smith. Five more wins and one loss to Reyes Cortez Jr. later, and he was getting a short notice call to face New Zealand’s Aaron Tau on Dana White’s Contender Series last September 17.

Some would have said that Smith wasn’t ready. He was, both in and out of the Octagon, as the Coloradan exhibited a poise on fight night that is usually only seen from a seasoned vet. And in the lead-up to the fight and after it, he exuded star power as he told his story to the broadcast and production crew.

“One of the things on the Contender Series that I got a lot of compliments on that made me feel really good about myself, more than being congratulated on the fight, was that a lot of the interviewers were telling me how articulate I was and how I was able to give out a good interview and not fumble over my words, and just sound confident and great on the mic. And the only reason why I say that is because in the past I've had problems with that. And to see where I've grown from then to now, I was just working on that, putting myself out there, getting in front of the camera, making videos, doing small stuff like that and it really prepared me for the bright lights.”

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Tell the truth, Elijah, were you doing interviews with yourself in front of the mirror? 

“I’m not going to lie,” he laughs. “I definitely started doing that. It'd be weird. I would be sitting in my room or in the bathroom and I'm giving myself an interview, damn near talking to myself. I hope nobody ever heard me do that because they probably think I was losing my mind. They're probably like, man, you probably took too many punches to the head or something.”

At least Smith is man enough to admit it, but if you wonder where that maturity comes from at such a young age, he first credits his parents, but then also credits becoming a parent himself when he was 16 and a sophomore in high school. That crash course in adulthood will do it for anyone, especially for this girl dad.

“That right there changed my whole life forever,” Smith said. “I didn't have a job. I didn't have a car. I damn sure didn't have my own place. And I had to take care of my responsibilities. That was something that my parents told me, it's going to be tough, and you have us to lean on if you need help, but now you’ve got to mature, you’ve got to grow up and take care of your responsibilities. And from there, I just cut out all the BS and just focused on what I needed to focus on if I want to be successful in my life and provide. Growing up, my parents gave me the best life that I can ask for. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable. We were able to go on vacations and have good Christmases. I don't want to put out the fake narrative as if I grew up in the slums or in the gutters. That's not the life that I grew up in. Any parents out there want to give their kids the best life. And I feel like that's what my parents did for me. So I wanted to do the same thing for my daughter, and not only just my daughter, but my future kids. I want to give them the same life that my parents were able to give to me. I remember going on vacations, going to Universal Studios, going to New York, going to Florida, all these fun places. So I want to replicate that same feeling because we built a lot of good memories.”

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Elijah Smith is making us all look bad at an age where most of us didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. Did I add that he’s a musician, too?

“Music was something that just always caught my attention,” Smith said. “I love to hear different sounds, different harmonies, different melodies. Just the whole process of making a song, from making the beat to adding onto your vocals and the mixing and mastering, it just always amazed me how, not only that, but just what we as humans can do with our voice or with our knowledge and with the technology that we have and what sounds we can make. I don't quite know where that came from because my mom doesn't sing or rap. My pops, he'll try to tell you that he raps, but good lord, good lord. (Laughs) Man, he has this one bar that he holds on to just in case he has to pull it out. And I'm like, man, I done heard this bar at least my whole life. But yeah, I just love the creativity that you can do with music. And I kind of bring that over to MMA because I can be as creative as I want in that ring and mix things up - mix up my strikes, mix up my striking with the wrestling, with the grappling and the music. I can mix up rapping with the harmonizing, sometimes singing, or just different stuff like that. I just love being creative.”