Bryce Mitchell overcame a brutal first-round knee strike to earn a unanimous decision win in his UFC bantamweight debut against Said Nurmagomedov, despite not remembering parts of the fight due to the impact.
Bryce Mitchell will definitely enjoy re-watching his latest victory, even if some moments will be entirely new to him. During his UFC bantamweight debut at UFC Abu Dhabi, Mitchell faced a tough start but fought back to secure a unanimous decision win over Said Nurmagomedov. A knee from Nurmagomedov left Mitchell dazed, and he later admitted he couldn’t recall that moment.
“Good thing is if you get kneed in the face, a lot of the times you don’t feel it,” Mitchell remarked in a backstage interview. “Somebody told me he kneed me. I believe you, I just wasn’t there for it.”
Mitchell had recently dropped to 135 pounds after a submission loss to featherweight contender Jean Silva. This win marked his first since controversial comments on a podcast where he expressed support for Adolf Hitler and questioned the Holocaust’s existence.
Nurmagomedov, entering with a 7-3 UFC record, proved to be a formidable opponent. “I didn’t expect to be in that much pain,” Mitchell confessed. “He’s tougher than I thought.”
“Everything on my body hurts,” he continued. “But I don’t think it’s nothing serious. Tomorrow, we’ll know more.”
The impactful knee from Nurmagomedov in Round 1 caused Mitchell to forget much of the fight’s opening. He credited his faith for helping him through what he described as “my hardest fight ever.”
“I have better cardio at ‘35,” Mitchell noted. “It was a really, really hard fight. I was just fighting for my life. I really was praying during the fight.”
“The fight felt like death,” he recalled. “I remember fighting for air, seeing lights, and hearing my coaches urging me on. If you ever get in one of those, I just recommend you pray.”