Phil Baroni, a former UFC fighter, was arrested earlier this week for allegedly murdering his girlfriend in Mexico. This ended up shocking many people who could not believe he could do such a thing, including his former colleagues. The 46-year-old had a reputation for sporadic behavior over the past few years, which was confirmed by his former friend Josh Barnett. During an episode of the Believe You Me podcast, Smith had this to say about the situation:
“I’m not a doctor. I’m no neurologist. I don’t know s**t about f**k, but it’s not an accident that there is some guys out there, not just in our sport, but in other sports, that have some real severe head trauma, and then over the years, they begin to change…”
‘Lionheart’ continued by sharing his CTE experience with training partners. He had this to say:
“I know a guy personally. I trained with forever… I would never say his name publicly, but he’s not the same person that he was. He took a really bad knockout and then repeated knockouts after that. He’s not the same guy… Now, I don’t even recognize him when I see him… It sounds like from the stories that Phil was right along that.”