Bryce Mitchell is not the personification of evil. He’s not a mean-spirited, hateful man.
He is uneducated, seemingly unintelligent and certainly uninformed on a lot of issues he speaks about, but he’s done a lot of good.
After his win over Edson Barboza at UFC 272, Mitchell said he’d donate $45,000 from his purse to needy children in his home state of Arkansas. Others stepped forward when he made the comments and the donations wound up being far greater than his $45,000.
He deserves to be commended.
He’s an elite professional mixed martial artist who has a record of 17-2. He started his career 15-0 before being submitted by Ilia Topuria. Topuria, of course, would go on to win the featherweight title.
Mitchell’s only other loss was to Josh Emmett, a blistering knockout.
He’s got one of only three wins by twister in UFC history and he has victories over the likes of Dan Ige, Andre Fili, Charles Rosa and Barboza, among others.
Let’s be honest, though: I’m not writing about Mitchell because of how good his fight with Jean Silva on Saturday at UFC 314 in Miami might be. Silva has won 12 in a row, 11 of them by finish, and is a -265 favorite.
It’s Mitchell’s comments on a podcast in January about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler that are the story.
Among the other egregious comments Mitchell made, he said, “I honestly think that Hitler was a good guy based upon my own research, not my public education indoctrination.”
UFC CEO Dana White denounced Mitchell’s comments, but the only “punishment” he’s faced is apparently having to fight the 15-2 Silva.
White’s argument is that he’s powerless to stop Mitchell because it’s a free speech issue. Free speech is apparently one of our most significantly misunderstood rights afforded to us by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.
In short, it prohibits the government from censoring our words. It has NOTHING to do with private businesses such as the UFC.
Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kapernick began to take a knee during the national anthem in the NFL preseason in 2016 to protest what he saw as police brutality and racial injustice. The outrage was immediate and Kapernick was essentially blackballed. He did not play again after the 2016 season.
Whether you agree with Kapernick’s position or not, he, like Mitchell, was exercising his right to free speech.
Kapernick thought that when a prominent NFL quarterback took a knee during the anthem to protest what he saw as a serious issue, it would spark change.
Instead, it cost him his job.
But in the UFC, Mitchell was not suspended but was given a microphone. And he will be given one on Thursday at the final pre-fight news conference and then again on Saturday, if he defeats Silva.
That’s the danger. He’s shown over the years that anything is liable to come from his mouth, given a platform.
Let’s be clear: Hitler was not a misunderstood figure.
He was a genocidal sociopath responsible for the systematic extermination of six million Jews. He was also responsible for tens of millions more deaths during World War II. His legacy is soaked in blood, hatred, and unspeakable cruelty.
Zach Boyden/Imagn Images
The tattoo on the arm of Holocaust survivor David Wolnerman should serve as a reminder to UFC fighter Bryce Mitchell that in no way was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler a 'good guy.'
Instead of brushing Mitchell’s remarks aside, the UFC should have cut him, suspended him or, at the very least, sent him to tour Auschwitz or Dachau. Let him walk the blood-soaked grounds where entire families were annihilated, and see for himself the legacy of the “good guy” he praised.
I wish Mitchell would have been forced to look into the eyes of a Holocaust survivor so that he could understand how his words hurt. I wish he could have seen the numbers tattooed on them like they were cattle being prepared for the slaughterhouse.
Mitchell’s words gave voice to the thousands of antisemites, as well as hate-mongers, extremists, and those who exist on the fringes.
Unsurprisingly, Mitchell is inconsistent in his positions.
He asked for forgiveness after the furor arose, but he has frequently bashed gays. He referred once again to doing his own research during a media day appearance on Wednesday in Miami in talking about his Hitler comments.
But when he was asked about his frequent bashing of gays, he indignantly quoted scripture in his defense, offering no remorse, only self-righteousness.
Sexual orientation, sadly, remains a hot button issue, but Mitchell wouldn’t show the same grace to gays that he asked for when he walked back his Hitler comments.
“Hitler did a lot of evil things,” Mitchell wrote on Instagram shortly after the Hitler comments became widespread. “I think we can all agree on that. I'm definitely not a Nazi, and definitely do not condone any of the evil things Hitler did.”
At media day, Mitchell was largely treated with kid gloves. Rather than being held accountable, one reporter inexplicably asked his opinion of the UFC signing Aaron Pico. The two words, "Adolf Hitler," were never uttered.
Mitchell’s apology rang hollow, especially when paired with the same tired, bigoted tropes he’s peddled before. And if the UFC really stands against hate, as it claims, it shouldn’t reward it with a spotlight, a paycheck and potentially a bonus.
He should have been grilled about his words, not thrown a softball at media day about the Pico signing.
This isn’t about free speech. It’s about basic decency.
Mitchell is recklessly uninformed. Giving him a microphone without guardrails opens the door to more dangerous, hateful rhetoric from Mitchell himself and from those on the edges of society who look up to him.
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UFC featherweight Bryce Mitchell speaks at UFC 314 Media Day in Miami on Wednesday.