Bryce Mitchell is wandering around Abu Dhabi with all the grace and poise of an angry Sean Strickland face-punching UFC fans in Sydney.
“Thug Nasty” is on location to prepare for his upcoming showdown against Said Nurmagomedov
, which takes place on Sat., July 26, 2025 inside Etihad Arena on “Fight Island” (if we’re still calling it that).Unfortunately, Mitchell didn’t bother to familiarize himself with local customs.
“This is my first time in Abu Dhabi,
so I’m kind of learning the rules still,” Mitchell said on Instagram. “So let me tell you something: In Abu Dhabi, a changing room is not a changing room. You do not change in a changing room. I don’t know where you change, but you certainly don’t do it in a changing room. So what happened is after training, I was at a gym. I took a shower and I go from the shower to the changing room, which is right next to the showers, and I go out of the shower, butt naked to the changing room, then change into my clothes.”
Too bad he couldn’t borrow this “Phenom”-enal bathrobe.
“There were six Muslim men in that changing room and they had them full white gowns on, head-to-toe,” Mitchell continued. “You already know what I’m talking about. Apparently, me being naked greatly offended them, to the point where I thought that they might actually start a fight with me, and they started walking at me. They started yelling at me, and I could tell that they were mad because I was naked, because they wasn’t mad when I walked in. They was only mad when I got out of the shower, and I was like, ‘Okay, well, they must be mad that I’m naked.’ And I didn’t know this until it was too late.”
Maybe it was the paint fumes causing him to hallucinate?
“So I got these six dudes about to fight me, six on one,” Mitchell added. “And I’m trying to tell them, ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ You know, they got all their white gowns on, and I start thinking, ‘Well, my Lord, I think, all of my years of gi training are about to pay off, because I’m about to be grabbing these dudes by their gowns and just start fighting.’ Because that’s the only thing I can do is just pull that towel over their head and start swinging. That’s what was going through my head. And so I was sitting there exposed before my fellow man. And by the way, there was a cold breeze in that room, so not only am I exposed before my fellow man, I’m outnumbered and I’m outsized, if you know what I’m saying.”
And probably outsmarted, based on this stupidity.
“So I’m not feeling very confident at this moment,” Mitchell said. “And I got these six dudes yelling at me, walking at me, telling me, ‘Leave, leave, leave.’ And then thank the Lord, [UFC veteran] T.J. Brown comes in. He says, ‘Hey, Bryce, you all right, brother?’ And that was the happiest I’ve ever been to see T.J. Brown in my life. I thought, we can sure as hell take three apiece. I don’t know if I can take six of them, but I know I can take three of them. I proceeded to tell them, ‘I’m sorry’ over and over, and then they finally let me get dressed. And brother, let me tell you, I’ve never put on my blue jeans and my boots quicker in my life than I did that day. And then I got the heck out of that locker room, and I learned my lesson.”
Some lessons are more painful than others.
The 30 year-old Mitchell (17-3) is hoping to reinvent himself by dropping to bantamweight for UFC Abu Dhabi. “Thug Nasty” is coming off a submission loss to Jean Silva at UFC 314 back in April, a fight that saw Mitchell yield to a much “stronger” foe.
For the current UFC Abu Dhabi fight card and ABC lineup click here.
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