Outside Source
Mitchell (19-3) was originally scheduled to fight Victor Henry at UFC Fight Night 278 on Saturday. However, Henry was forced out with an injury and replaced by a previously undefeated Santiago Luna (8-1) on short notice. Mitchell dominated Luna on the ground throughout the fight before securing an arm-triangle choke, forcing Luna to tap with less than ten seconds left. While the fight was not very fan-friendly apart from the finish, Mitchell explained that he largely burned his arms out trying to control his opponent. Mitchell remarked in a post-fight interview:
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“I’m squeezing so hard with my arms the whole fight; it was actually hard for me to elbow and punch him. Because you do that with your hands too… When he moves, I finally get to punch, but I don’t get to do very big punches because he is moving. So, you get a heavy grappling match, an exhausting pace, with very little room for error. He made a slight mistake, and I was able to capitalize on it.”
Mitchell worked his way into the rankings before suffering his first professional loss against future double-champ Ilia Topuria in 2022. “Thug Nasty” then dropped two of his next four and chose to drop to 135 pounds following his brutal knockout loss to Jean Silva last year. Mitchell has since won both outings in his new division. Mitchell feels he is a natural bantamweight and is thankful that he isn’t facing featherweights, who weigh a lot heavier than him on fight night. Mitchell said:
“I think I’m just less undersized [at bantamweight]. I don’t think that I’m the bigger guy in there. I just think that I’m used to being the smaller guy, but now I’m just medium size. So, it makes me look bigger. Thank God I’m not fighting guys that are 200 pounds. I’m a real ‘35er.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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