Bryce Mitchell’s return to the spotlight has already taken a strange turn, and not because of what happened in the cage. During a recent trip to Abu Dhabi for his upcoming clash against Said Nurmagomedov at UFC on ABC 9, ‘Thug Nasty’ found himself nearly fighting six angry men in a locker room.

Sounds wild, right? You’re not alone. Even Chael Sonnen couldn’t help but compare it to a legendary altercation involving a young interpreter, a Cuban wrestling champion, and a UFC veteran!

As Bryce Mitchell stated in a video shared on social media, he’d just showered after training when he stepped into what he thought was the “changing room,” completely naked. There, he was met by six men dressed in traditional white robes. They weren’t thrilled. And Mitchell? He panicked as he confessed, “Apparently, me being naked greatly offended them to the point where I thought that they might actually start a fight with me.”

That’s why Sonnen weighed in on his YouTube channel with a video where he saw echoes of an old Matt Lindland story!

According to ‘The Bad Guy’, “Matt Lindland had a situation exactly like this where the Olympic champion comes up to Matt after an event, drops his bag, he’s got his bag over his shoulder.  He drops the bag and he’s got a kid with him. The kid who’s about 12 is the interpreter.” The Olympic champion was reportedly Filiberto Azcuy, a Cuban Greco-Roman wrestler who holds two gold medals in the sport.

The scene was surreal as Chael Sonnen painted the picture as only he can, stating in the video, “The Olympic champ starts yelling at Matt, the child then says, ‘Hey, you headbutted me. You broke my teeth. I’ve known you a long time. This is not a fight. If you want to fight, we can fight. But this is wrestling. It’s not like in my country, Cuban. It’s not like in my country like it is here. I can’t just go to a dentist. I have to live with these broken teeth.”

Lindland’s response? He didn’t hear the emotion or the issue Azcuy had with the alleged headbutt. He only heard the challenge. His response? “Matt tells the kid, “Tell him, okay. Tell him I will fight him now….The only Thing Matt got out of the story is when Filiberto said, “If you want to fight, we can fight.”

Sonnen compared that single-mindedness to Bryce Mitchell’s reaction as ‘Thug Nasty’ also prepared himself to throw down without hesitation! When backed into a corner, both Mitchell and Lindland defaulted to what they know: fight first, and figure out the details later.

And speaking of details, while the comparisons drawn by Chael Sonnen are pretty intriguing, what exactly was going through Bryce Mitchell’s mind when all of this went down?

Bryce Mitchell reveals his thought process in a hilarious story after being “outnumbered” in Abu Dhabi

Let’s just say it wasn’t a calm moment once Bryce Mitchell walked out of the shower in Abu Dhabi! While the start of the incident is already mentioned above, the entire story gets even more stunning once you hear it from ‘Thug Nasty’ himself.

In the video that has since gone viral on social media, Mitchell shared, “And I could tell that they were mad because I was naked. Because they weren’t mad when I walked in. They was only mad when I got out of the shower. And I was like, OK, well, they must be mad that I’m naked. And I didn’t know this until it was too late. So I got these six dudes about to fight me, six on one. OK.”

With no time to think, he leaned on instinct, joking that years of gi training had mentally prepared him to grab robes and swing. But the panic wasn’t just about numbers. “There was a cold breeze in that room,” he added, with a laugh. “Not only am I exposed before my fellow man, I’m outnumbered and I’m outsized, if you know what I’m saying.”

Just when it looked like fists might fly, his teammate and fellow Arkansas native, TJ Brown, walked in and changed the odds. “That was the happiest I’ve ever been to see TJ Brown in my life,” Mitchell admitted. “We can sure as hell take three apiece.”

The tension broke. Mitchell apologized, quickly got dressed, and bolted from the room. “I’ve never put on my blue jeans and my boots quicker in my life,” he added.

In the end, Bryce Mitchell’s Abu Dhabi scare may have started with a cultural misunderstanding, but it revealed something deeper: how fast instinct can take over when a fighter feels threatened. As indicated by Chael Sonnen and just like Matt Lindland all those years ago, from wrestling mats to UFC locker rooms, one thing stays the same: when fighters are backed into a corner, their first language is still the fight!