Bryce Mitchell (left) and Jean Silva of Brazil compete at the UFC 314 press conference at Kaseya Center on April 10, 2025 in Miami. (Photo of Mike Roach / Zuffa LLC)
(Mike Roach via Getty Images)
Have you ever tried to explain the strange and sometimes wonderful world of MMA to people who have no knowledge or experience of combat sports? Have you ever heard about it and realize how weird that seems weird?
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For example, imagine trying to tell them what's going on with Bryce Mitchell and Jean Silva at UFC 314 on Saturday.
Imagine you explaining that this fight attracts more attention than it would do because A guy professed a condition and an admiration for Adolf HitlerAnd the other guy swore to beat him to be stupid. Just imagine this. How you should explain that Mitchell, who is not fully sold on ideas like gravity and considers a globe as a personal affront, is almost sure that he was tortured in his sleep by sexy demons and ladies Since he took this fight with Silva.
How then you had to follow by stressing that Silva relied on all of this, making fun of Mitchell with each turn in order to get the most out of a fight with the man who The CEO of the UFC, Dana White, called “literally one of the most stupid human beings”.
You should probably take a break there, right? You should specify that, yes, the leaders of the UFC are well aware of everything that is happening here – the Hitler Apologia, the sleep demons, the stuff on the ground – and tried to transform this straw into gold by presenting it as an opportunity rather than as a controversy.
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It is the sale argument in a word. You don't like Mitchell, who said he wanted to go fishing with Hitler, then tried to protect himself from hoots by quoting the Bible? Here is your chance to watch him get kicked up on live television. Maybe.
And the fact is that it works. It is a fight between a guy who barely clings to the edge of the top-15 classification and another guy who always tries to penetrate them. In most other circumstances, this would be another fight. No one here is, for the moment, a competitor or a former champion or anything close.
But this is one of the main brand fights on a payment by UFC notice of $ 80 because there are issues. They can be mainly personal and deeply bizarre – among the things on which Mitchell and Silva have published publicly, it is which of them better understands the teachings of Jesus Christ – but these issues exist and we are aware of it. We know that, when no one ever wishes To lose a television fight in cage, these two really, Really I don't want to lose each other. For at least one of them, his grip already tenuous on reality could be at stake here.
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The one, in case you could not guess, is Mitchell. He has always lived in his own special world, where absolutely everything could be true as long as he is supported by any scientific research. But something about this particular fight at this special moment seems to have put it on an even more trembling psychological ground. He really seems to believe that he is fighting not only Silva, but the forces of Satan. When he said he had started fighting real demons in his dreams after taking this fight, it did not seem to be an understatement. If Mitchell had to lose this fight (Betmgm has it as an outsider +185), Where would it go from there?
Jean Silva needed two attempts, but finally made weight on Friday morning for his featherweight clash. (Photo of Jeff Bottari / Zuffa LLC)
(Jeff Bottari via Getty Images)
As for Silva, it seems to be more for the bit. He feels the opportunity. Mitchell is a name known in this sport, and also a person whose pain and suffering could bring joy to others at the moment – including the leaders of the UFC. If Silva can take advantage of this moment while winning his fifth consecutive victory from the UFC, he will be officially someone in MMA on Sunday morning.
Again, it is a lot to explain on chicken wings at the Fête de la Montre UFC 314. But it is not because it is ridiculous and strange that it is not real. We look at these fights for action and intensity, of course. But we care because of people and stories.
Sometimes the stakes are classic and easily understood (a guy has a large gold belt, and the other guy wants to take it). Other times, they are absurd and surrealist (a guy thinks that Hitler had a bad blow and believes that he fights the devil, and the other wants to become our hero by closing this guy). But all that the combat promoter has to make is to find a reason to get us to worry about looking enough. And no one has ever said that the reason should be good or normal, or even at a residence of mind.
