White: Mitchell ‘stood up like a man’ in face of UFC 314 adversity

Bryce Mitchell might be an idiot, but he gained some respect in the eyes of Dana White for his composure before and after a loss to Jean Silva at UFC 314.

Mitchell has spent the past six years saying a whole lot of dumb stuff while in the UFC spotlight. A lot of it we just laughed off. Oh, Bryce Mitchell thinks the world is flat. Bryce Mitchell thinks seatbelts are dumb. Bryce Mitchell believes his witch ex-girlfriend hexed his tomato plants. All just silly stuff from a guy who ran a power drill through his scrotum, so who cares?

But then Mitchell went on YouTube and called Hitler a good guy he’d like to go fishing with, and explicitly approved of the dictator’s persecution of Jews and homosexuals in Germany. All of a sudden this “Thug Nasty” thing wasn’t so funny. And white UFC CEO Dana White didn’t cut Mitchell, he did push back against his statements.

“Hitler is one of the most disgusting and evil human beings to ever walk the Earth, and anyone that even tries to take an opposing position is a moron,” White said before giving us a tease of the future. “For all of you who hate Bryce Mitchell, you get to see him hopefully get his ass whooped on global television.”

That’s exactly what happened at UFC 314. The UFC turned Jean Silva around on a month’s notice with the not so subtle mission of kicking Mitchell’s ass. “Lord” delivered, whupping Bryce and putting him to sleep in round two of their fight (watch the highlights here).

Mitchell says he’s happy God saved all his teeth. And now White is giving the Arkansas fighter his due for showing up through fight week into fight night.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll say about Bryce Mitchell,” White said at the UFC 314 post-fight press conference. “You know what happened. And, you know, he’s a grown man. He stood his ground, came out and faced the media several times, came in here and fought.”

“I’m sure a lot of moments he’s had leading up to this fight, including tonight in the cage, he felt like his back was against the wall. And he stood up like a man and he fought and did his thing.”

Even if UFC higher-ups are done punishing Mitchell for the ‘Hitler incident,’ there are few easy fights at featherweight now that “Thug Nasty” is at this level. Will we continue to see him get his ass whooped on global television? Probably. Does the satisfaction that brings outweigh the downside of giving the worst tier of loser conspiracy nuts a foothold in the UFC world? Probably not.