Bryce Mitchell made no excuses for his loss to Jean Silva in his first statement after falling for filing at UFC 314 on Saturday.
Arguably transformed into the most talked about battles throughout the card, Silva finally put Mitchell to sleep with a nasty ninja choke in the second round before dominating his dynamic performance from start to finish. Before the finish, Silva was dazzled with his feet, but he shut down Mitchell on almost every exchange before showing off his excellent grappling before finishing his victory in submission.
Following the event, Mitchell went to social media to deal with his loss and the unfortunate outcome that he clearly didn’t see coming.
“I want to thank you all for their support and let Ya’ll know that I’m doing well,” Mitchell told Instagram. “Thank God, he protected me. I didn’t lose my teeth. I didn’t break, so I felt better about it. I fought as hard as I could.
“I’ll go and do some adjustments, but it means he put me to sleep. I had nothing left to give. I’m happy about it. But I know I did my best. But I need to get better. That’s the lesson I learned here.
Saturday was the pinnacle of a difficult few months for Mitchell after he became one of the most slandered fighters on the entire roster, following comments from a podcast that defended Adolf Hitler and denied that the Holocaust had happened.
During her first encounter with Silva at a pre-match press conference, Mitchell was booed by the audience.
Still, Mitchell says that by the time he fought the night he felt the love and worship of the fans who were thick and thin and chose to stick to his side.
“I’ve never received this much support,” Mitchell said. “It’s just crazy, it’s a crazy week and I can’t even put it into words.
“I really thought I was going to win the fight, and 100% believed it, because I had never had such a big fight before, so this fight got such a hype because I was like Wow out of nowhere.
The submission loss drops Mitchell 2-3 in the last five fights. This includes the devastating knockouts he suffered against Josh Emmett in 2023.
Mitchell stabbed to lose, vowing that he would continue his dedication to get better before he returned to compete in the UFC again.
“I’m just going to keep fighting, and that’s all I can do,” Mitchell said. “It’s all about what we can do. Whenever we lose, we learn from it and continue to fight. That’s what I’m trying to do.”