Bryce Mitchell reacts after suffering submission loss to Ilia Topuria at UFC 282: “It really wasn’t me out there”

Bryce Mitchell has issued a statement after suffering his first career loss to Ilia Topuria at Saturday’s UFC 282 event in Las Vegas.

Mitchell (15-1 MMA) had entered the contest sporting a perfect record of 6-0 inside of the Octagon. ‘Thug Nasty’ was coming off a win over Edson Barboza in his most previous effort at March’s UFC 272 event.

Meanwhile, Ilia Topuria (13-0 MMA) had also entered tonight’s pay-per-view lineup rocking a perfect record of 4-0 inside the UFC. ‘El Matador’ was coming off three straight knockout victories, his latest coming against Jai Herbert back in March.

Saturday’s featherweight matchup proved to be a coming out party for Ilia Topuria. ‘El Matador’ was able to get the better of Bryce Mitchell both in the standup and on the ground and looked absolutely phenomenal on route to a second-round submission win. Ilia forced ‘Thug Nasty’ to tapout with an arm-triangle choke.

Official UFC 282 Result: Ilia Topuria def. Bryce Mitchell via submission (arm-triangle choke) at 3:10 of Round 2

Shortly following the disappointing setback, ‘Thug Nasty’ took to social media where he provided the following message for his fans:

Thank y’all for the luv! pic.twitter.com/SCIJZSOK2I

— Bryce Mitchell (@ThugnastyMMA) December 12, 2022

“Hey I just want to let y’all know that I’m feeling just fine. I’m (back) home and I just want to thank y’all for all the love and support. And I definitely got to let you know that it really wasn’t me out there. You know, I had the flu the week before and you know I thought I’d just tough it out. And I didn’t feel good at all in there. I wasn’t myself and I trained a lot harder and could have performed a lot better.”

Bryce Mitchell continued:

”You know I wish I never ever took the fight.  But I didn’t know it would mess me up that bad, so I thought I’d be able to hang in there for all three rounds.”

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