Jean Silva’s knockout power could spell doom for Bryce Mitchell at UFC 314.
And not just the end of their fight, but the end of Mitchell’s career.
There’s been plenty of bad blood between Silva and Mitchell in the leadup to their featherweight contest this Saturday in Miami, to the point that their matchup is arguably the most highly anticipated fight on the card. Mitchell has drawn plenty of attention and deserved criticism for offensive comments in which he supported Adolf Hitler and questioned the existence of the Holocaust, which has made Silva eager to silence him.
At UFC 314 media day on Wednesday, Silva was asked how he expects the fight to play out, and warns that Mitchell could suffer his second devastating knockout loss in three appearances—an outcome that might force Mitchell into retirement.
“He’s fought Ilia Topuria,” Silva said. “He beat Edson Barboza, Dan Ige. Everything was going good until that knockout, until he got knocked out by Josh Emmett and I think that really messed up his brain and his emotions and everything just kind of went wrong. You can tell that he’s not looking at this the same way that he used to look at it before. It just really messed him up.
“So the fight’s going to go, he’s going to try to take me down, I’m going to defend, I’m going to throw some shots at his head, might knock him out in the first, in the second. We’ll see, but maybe he’ll need to retire after this because he’s going to have some brain damage after this one.”
While Silva has gone back and forth between insulting Mitchell and suggesting they could be friendly after the fight, Mitchell has expressed an intense distrust of Silva. Earlier at media day, Mitchell stated that Silva “treats me like total shit” and maintained that evil spirits have plagued his dreams since their fight was booked.
Silva balked at the comment, but added he takes issue with Mitchell’s opinions and how he chooses to express them.
“I never disrespected him as a fighter,” Silva said. “His skills or his abilities, he’s fought really tough guys in the UFC, but it actually upsets me that—he can believe whatever he wants to believe, but it upsets me that he doesn’t see the position that he’s in as a public person and doesn’t mind his words and disrespects people and children and everything else. He talks a lot about God, but he wears a t-shirt with God with guns around him, so that makes no sense to me. It’s a lot of contradictions.”
Silva vs. Mitchell is one of three featherweight fights on Saturday’s main card, along with Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes facing off in the main event for a vacant title, and former Bellator star Patricio Pitbull making his UFC debut against former interim champion Yair Rodriguez.
Even with the name power on the rest of the lineup, Silva is convinced he’s being viewed as the man who could steal the show.
“It’s crazy, we’re not even fighting for the title and we’re getting all this attention,” Silva said. “I’m glad that Bryce notices that. I’ve got to give credit where credit is due, but look at me, five fights in the UFC. Can you imagine the noise when I fight for the title?”
