Every week you see the same articles about the same ranked fighters, but here at The MMA Mindset we want to bring you something different. Every week going forward, we will be going into detail about one unranked prospect who is causing a stir in their respective divisions. This week, it just happens to be one of my favourites... Bryce "Thug Nasty" Mitchell.
Having just signed to fight Andre "Touchy" Fili on October 31st, we are going to look through his recent fights in the UFC, and what makes the young fighter so intriguing.
Bryce Mitchell has exploded onto the MMA scene with his charismatic personality and his world class jiu-jitsu skills. Despite not even being ranked yet, the Arkansas-born fighters has amassed a large social media following and is responsible for the viral "camo shorts" movement.
"Thug Nasty" first announced himself in the UFC as part of the Ultimate Fighter: Undefeated series, however he ended up losing to eventual season winner Brad Katona. Despite not winning the show, he was signed to the promotion and drawn up to fight Tyler Diamond.
Mitchell won his promotional debut by a close margin, after having to dig deep in the third round after some relentless pressure from his opponent. Although this wasn't Bryce's most convincing victory, we definitely saw the potential and what he can bring to the UFC.
Going into his second UFC fight against Bobby Moffatt, there was not a huge amount of hype for the then 24-year-old, but in this particular bout we started to see the elite submission-grappling from Bryce, and despite not being able to finish the fight early there was still some promising signs. He once again took home the decision victory.
Now, this is where we really started to see the skill-set of Mitchell. In his third fight he fought young prospect, Matt Sayles. "Thug Nasty" was relentless in this one round outing, rolling around the mat (see what I did there?) like he was in a SUG bout. After taking the back of his opponent, Bryce locked in what would only be the second twister in UFC history, and it looked so effortless as well. This is when fans started to take notice. He took to the mic after the bout and demanded camo shorts for his next fight.
His fourth fight in the promotion was definitely a jump in competition. He took on dangerous grappler Charles "Boston Strong" Rosa, and many fans were curious to see how Mitchell would implement his game-plan against such a strong opponent, especially in the ground-game aspect. The 25-year-old would absolutely dominate Rosa from bell to bell, putting on an absolute grappling clinic and nearly securing yet another twister to add to his resumé.
Looking at the current top 15 of the featherweight division, is it predominately full of strikers, despite the wizard himself Ryan Hall (oh lord, give me that fight please) and Brian Ortega. This means that Mitchell would 100% have an advantage in the grappling over the majority of the division. I may be getting ahead of myself, and that's been known to happen when it comes to so-called "hype trains", but I truly believe he could be a mainstay in the division for years to come.
It remains to be seen if he can best the dangerous and experienced Andre Fili, but if he does, I can see him being pencilled in for a top 10 opponent in early 2021.
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