Bryce Mitchell suffered a scary knockout at UFC 296 on Saturday night when he was rendered unconscious by a single thunderous overhand right from Josh Emmett, but the featherweight star is now doing his best to look on the bright side as he comes to terms with the defeat.
“I want to let everybody know that I’m OK,” Mitchell said in an Instagram video. “I want to thank you all so much for watching and I’ve just been so blessed this weekend. I cannot complain about anything and really where I messed up is a poor strategy.
“So my strategy was stick to the jab, make my reads, work my feet, kind of sit on the outside, but that put me to where I’m not putting that forward pressure that I really like to put and it also made me look timid. That’s not how I fight. I fight very aggressive and so I encourage anybody who’s got a fight in their life—not just a fistfight, I’m talking about any type of fight, be aggressive and attack it. Because at least if you go down and you lose that battle, you’re going to know you fought and you went head on towards it. So just a bad strategy by me tonight.
“Gosh, Josh hits hard and he’s so low to the ground when he hits that overhand right, it’s hard to hit him with anything. What can I say? I could have done better, but I obviously didn’t.
“I’m so lucky to live the life that I live. I have a wife because of this sport. Me and my wife would have never met if it wasn’t for this sport. I have a kid coming because of this sport. I have a house because of this sport. I have a farm because of this sport. I wouldn’t trade it for nothing and there’s nothing that’s going to get me down. I refuse to let negativity control me and I just wanted to tell you all that I love you.
“It could have been a lot worse. When I was in that hospital, I was getting rolled by people with no legs, no arms, faces all messed up, face turned sideways like the dude got in a car wreck, so I cannot complain about anything. I’m so happy to be here and I’m healthy and I love you all and I thank you.”
The 29-year-old Mitchell won his first five fights in a row in the UFC, but has since lost two of his last three bouts, with a September win over Dan Ige being sandwiched between a submission defeat against Ilia Topuria and Saturday night’s KO loss to Emmett.
