“The rules are set up much more for strikers than for wrestlers,” Joe Rogan claimed about the UFC. Fair enough, if we take a look at how rounds reset positions, fighters always begin on their feet when a new round begins. That gives strikers a fresh opportunity, while throwing a grappler’s efforts from previous rounds down the drain. That has broken the rhythm of real fights in the UFC, at least that’s what Bryce ‘Thug Nasty’ Mitchell believes.

The grappling-heavy featherweight matched up against the striking powerhouse Ilia Topuria at UFC 282. Fans favored Topuria, but no one expected ‘El Matador’ to finish Mitchell in the ground game with a nasty arm-triangle. Topuria even mocked how his ground game was better than the BJJ practitioner. Mitchell, however, believes that’s not what happened.

Bryce Mitchell suggests what’s wrong with UFC

‘Thug Nasty’ blamed the flu when Topuria badly dominated the former in their big fight. Mitchell, however, believes there’s one sore point that would have flipped the game in a heartbeat. Rounds. “I’d say no rounds. That’d be the number one thing I’d change, because I would’ve beat Ilia Topuria that night without rounds even though I was sick,” Mitchell shared on the Austin and Matt podcast on what he’d change in the UFC.

“Well, you know, Rogan has kind of agreed with you, too, because Rogan actually thinks even if you have rounds, if you’re on top at the end of the round, the next round should restart on top and not stand them up between rounds,” Matt Finneran agreed. The UFC podcaster has often called for a fairer rule system for the grapplers. In fact, Rogan believes that it is more in tune with real fight scenarios, where the referees cannot stop the fight when the horns go off.

If we take a look at how the UFC 282 fight unfolded, Mitchell did succeed in getting the fight to the ground in the first round. However, with only a minute left on the clock, he didn’t get much time to work from the top. Right back on their feet, Topuria unleashed monstrous strikes before getting a takedown of his own. The bloody war between the featherweights ended when Topuria sunk in a clean arm triangle. But not before leaving a bad rap about the round system for Mitchell.

Bringing in a Walmart analogy, Bryce Mitchell added, “It’s a fact. You get more pay-per-views with knockouts, but if we’re fighting at Walmart, it doesn’t matter, bro. There ain’t no rounds. I get on top of you, your a** has to get up, you don’t get the ref. And same for me. If you get on top of me in a real fight, the ref can’t save me.”

Now, Mitchell isn’t new to making some very questionable claims. He found himself at odds with UFC boss Dana White for making anti-semitic claims, praising Hitler. Not the most attractive views. But this claim against rounds might have a little ring to it. Surely, the rules do look a bit lopsided towards the striking-heavy fighters. And that nearly broke Bryce Mitchell down.

Bryce Mitchell almost retired after UFC 282

The fight brought a lot of buzz and many more eyeballs to the BJJ black belt. Clarifying his position after suffering a literal crushing defeat against ‘El Matador,’ Mitchell took to X: “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.”

Unfortunately, that loss left a deeper scar than he’d admitted initially. Soon after, in the UFC’s backstage series ‘The Thrill and The Agony,’ Mitchell expressed how he should “f***ing retire” before he gets deeper in the mud. He added how he would be much more successful if he put all his effort from MMA and used that somewhere else. Yes, that night’s loss was still too fresh in his mind.

Kicking back from that self-depricating spiral, Mitchell returned to the Octagon almost a year later against Dan Ige. And man did he put on a show! Despite severe cuts and a swollen, busted eye, Mitchell took the fight to the ground and outgrappled Ige. Multiple submission attempts and a ground game that shut off Ige’s movements completely, ‘Thug Nasty’ took the victory via UD. That was a crazy comeback, but not crazier than his claims about the flat Earth.