Bryce Mitchell has been on an apology tour that no one asked for following his lopsided loss to Ilia Topuria at UFC 282. Mitchell isn’t taking the loss well, offsetting his frustrations towards featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. According to Mitchell, Volkanovski is overrated and ripe for the pickings should they eventually fight.
Mitchell blamed the UFC for forcing him to take the fight with Topuria after a bout with the flu. Topuria locked Mitchell in an arm-triangle in the first round, scoring a submission and derailing Mitchell’s title aspirations. Even so, Mitchell’s hoping to get back on track by virtue of being a loudmouth as Volkanovski prepares to face lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 284.
In a lengthy interview with ESPN, the bitter Mitchell was not short on excuses, but zeroed in on the future hall of fame champion near the end of the interview:
““He’s getting the easy ******* fights,” Mitchell said. “These contenders are taking each other out. That’s what’s going on. He’s getting paid 100 times what I get paid to fight mother******* that aren’t even as hard as mother******* I’m fighting. That’s what’s going on.”
Bryce Mitchell on Alexander Volkanovski taking easy fights
Mitchell on the backburner as Volkanovski chases history
Volkanowski hopes to be only the fifth person in UFC history to win titles in two divisions should he beat Makhachev in February. That would cap off an impressive run that has seen him clean out the featherweight division. The Austrailian has wins over the likes of Chang Sung Jung, Jose Aldo, and three wins over Max Holloway.
Mitchell’s biggest win came against the aging Edson Barboza at UFC 272, but was wiped out by Topuria in his next fight. While there’s no shame in losing to a rising star like Topuria, Mitchell is clearly delusional if he thinks he would run the gauntlet like Volkanovski did.
This is actually par for the course when it comes to Mitchell. In addition to believing the UFC conspired against him to fight Topuria, he is a flat-earther and believes the coronavirus was created by the US government for…reasons. That makes it all the more easy to realize Mitchell is perhaps beyond rational thought at this point.
Should Volkanovski fail to beat Makhachev and return to featherweight, Mitchell won’t get first crack at him for the title despite his callouts. Yair Rodriguez and Josh Emmitt will face off on the UFC 284 undercard for the interim featherweight title.
