Bryce Mitchell withdrew from a grappling match this Friday at Karate Combat claiming “a big matchup” is next in the UFC. Jean Silva hopes he’s the one standing inside the octagon across from him.
Silva dismantled Melsik Baghdasaryan this past weekend at UFC Seattle to improve to 4-0 with four knockouts since joining the company, and called for a clash with Mitchell in his post-fight interview. On Monday, Silva told MMA Fighting he hasn’t been approached by the UFC about his next move yet, but is confident it’s about to be done.
“Since he’s out of this grappling match, I believe the tough fight coming his way is probably [UFC CBO] Hunter [Campbell] putting my name on the table,” Silva said. “They probably didn’t give him a way out. Like, ‘You have to take this fight.’ And since he’s a hillbilly, he’ll try to act tough. Hillbillies like to walk around with toothpicks on their mouth, and I’ll make him swallow it.”
Mitchell made headlines this past January for defending Adolf Hitler and denying the Holocaust happened, and Silva said that’s not the only reason why he wants to punch him in the face.
“If you look at where I’m going, beating Bryce Mitchell is something nice,” Silva said. “And knocking him out puts me in a different position. Why? The champion [Ilia] Topuria, who just moved up in weight, he didn’t knock Bryce Mitchell out. He beat him for three rounds, but couldn’t knock him out. Bryce Mitchell gave Topuria a fight, so Topuria had to submit him. So going there and knocking Bryce Mitchell out like I did to Melsik will make Dana and Hunter look at me with different eyes.
“It’s one thing to knock [Mitchell] out like Josh Emmett did. Josh Emmett threw an overhand and it landed. He didn’t build a knockout. He just threw [the hand]. And everyone that sees me fight knows I build it step by step. When I knock Bryce Mitchell out, they’ll see me build it. And then I can fight Josh Emmett and go straight for the belt—or maybe one more after that—a similar path to what Topuria did.”
Silva said it was nice to see UFC CEO Dana White compliment him after UFC Seattle and award him with a $50,000 performance bonus. He jokingly said White is even more excited about the Fighting Nerds talent than what he’s willing to show publicly, otherwise “the price goes up.” Silva suggested booking him against Mitchell for UFC 315, which goes down May 10 in Montreal, “if Mitchell agreed to get beat up on that date.”
“I’ll open a kindergarten. I’m educating these kids,” Silva said. “Charles Jourdain was doing close fights, I went there and educated him. Drew Dober, that I won’t count, he’s pretty good. Melsik kept turning down fights. ‘You want to turn down fights? So let me educate you.’ And now it’s sh*t-talker Bryce Mitchell. I’ll wash his mouth with a beating.”
