Sunday MMA Quick Hits: Rampage Jr. Wins, Byrce Mitchell Falls Down Conspiracy Rabbit Hole

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Bryce Mitchell UFC Vegas 12
Bryce Mitchell, UFC Vegas 12 Post-Fight Press Conference Credit: Gabriel Gonzalez/Cageside Press

Two Bellator fighters required surgery following Bellator 274, while Jon Jones and Bryce Mitchell were in the news the wrong reasons this week. On the positive side, Rampage Jackson was a proud pop following his son’s second win in MMA.

Let’s get to the Sunday MMA Quick Hits with no further ado.

Rough Night at the Office For Bellator Fighters

Bellator 274 turned out to be a pretty fun fight card, one that actually managed to hold its own against UFC Vegas 48, which it more or less went head-to-head with (Bellator’s main card kicked off as the UFC main event was wrapping up).

Boy, was it a rough night at the office for a couple of Bellator fighters however. In the co-main event, Chance Rencountre was kicked by a mule Andrey Koreshkov so hard he broke five ribs, bruised a kidney, and wound up with a punctured lung.

And earlier in the night, Aviv Gozali suffered a broken ankle and torn ACL in his prelim bout against Bobby King, which ended in a doctor’s stoppage.

So, you wanna be a f*&^in’ fighter?!?

Rampage Jackson’s Son Wins Second MMA Bout

One of the more interesting aspects of MMA being such a young sport is seeing a number of generational talents emerge. From various Gracies, to the aforementioned Aviv Gozali (son of “Israeli Batman” Haim Gozali) to Ray Cooper III to Baby Slice, there are now a number of second generation fighters competing in professional mixed martial arts. The latest? Raja Jackson, who improved to 2-0 as an amateur recently.

The best part? Rampage Jr. even has his own chain. If Thor Silva (son of Wanderlei) was in the right weight class, there could be some serious money to be made…

Mike Perry Is 2-0 Since Leaving the UFC

It’s not really “MMA News” but UFC veteran Mike Perry is 2-0 outside the UFC (and outside of MMA). After picking up a win in Triller’s Triad Combat late last year, “Platinum” Mike returned to action at BKFC: KnuckleMania 2, and walked away with a decision win against Julian Lane.

Perry never developed much of a ground game over his years in the UFC, but striking-only formats like BKFC should allow him to shine. And the craziness of the bare knuckle org seems tailor made for Mike.

Bryce Mitchell Falls Down the Conspiracy Rabbit Hole

Arkansas native Bryce Mitchell is an interesting character, from Twister submissions to his rap demo tape. He’s been outspoken at times, criticizing the masking of children during the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s one thing— there have been plenty of legitimate debates about whether masking small kids is effective, given most can’t sit still or keep their hands away from their face for more than five minutes. But on The MMA Hour this past week, Mitchell showed that he’s gone right down the conspiracy rabbit hole. How badly? He believes the U.S. government has orchestrated school shootings as a pretext for banning AR-15s.

Yikes. It was so bad that MMA Fighting’s Youtube channel listed the following disclaimer: “MMA Fighting doesn’t support or condone the misinformation in the following interview.”

How did Mitchell even get on the subject? He started by asking Ariel Helwani’s opinion of the trucker convoy protests in Canada (Helwani, a Canadian, resides in the U.S.). Somehow, that led to Mitchell jumping on the subject of guns (while flanked by two assault-style rifles and carrying a pistol).

Someone please take away Bryce Mitchell’s internet connection. The dude needs to detox. Yes, false flag operations have happened historically, while others were floated but never used (see Operation Northwoods, which included a plot for the U.S. government to down civilian and military aircraft in order to spark a war with Cuba — an idea rejected outright by JFK). The U.S. government orchestrating school shootings just to ban guns? The obvious fault in that logic is that, if it weren’t for mass shootings, few people would care about banning guns in the first place.

Jon Jones’ Arrest Video Is Simply Depressing

Say what you will about Jon Jones, but recently released video (via the Las Vegas Review-Journal) of his September arrest on domestic violence charges is simply depressing.

Bodycam footage shows Jones head butting a police car (for which he was later charged), and asking officers to “hang me. Hurt me and kill me.” A clearly inebriated Jones accuses officers of arresting him “just because I’m big and black.”

Jones, love him or hate him, is one of the most talented fighters to step into the octagon in UFC history— but he has also squandered some of his prime years thanks to incidents like this. And while ultimately the responsibility for cleaning up his act lies with Jones himself, this is just sad to see.

Triller Buys Majority Stake in BKFC

Triller, who have ventured into celebrity boxing and hybrid sports like Triad Combat have purchased a stake in BKFC.

Bare Knuckle FC President David Feldman announced the news on The MMA Hour.

“We grew this thing to a point where we thought that we got it as far as we could take it by ourselves right now,” Feldman told the show (h/t MMA Fighting). “We’ve overcome so many obstacles and so many people telling us no and, ‘this will never happen, you’ll never make it work.’ And we got to a point where we’re pretty well accepted among the combat sports community right now, and we needed to make a partnership that was going to take us to the next level, create more opportunities, more resources, more funding, more things like that to acquire some more fighters, take care of the fighters that are already there, and just create more opportunities for everybody.”

Triller now owns a majority stake in the bare-knuckle boxing outfit. Let’s be honest, this is a perfect pairing, and may turn out to be the best thing for combat sports since CamSoda decided to put on fights. Then again, maybe not.

Eye Yai Yai!

MMA is not for the faint of heart, but even the most iron stomached fight fan will want to cringe at this. It’s not often you hear the words “the globe is out of its socket,” and we frankly never want to hear them again.

This malady befell welterweight Mark Martin at the PFL Challenger Series 2 card on Friday night in Orlando, FL. Having suffered a potential fractured orbital, Martin reportedly blew his nose — causing his eyeball to dislodge.

Luckily, Martin is okay, and despite the loss to Danilo Taylor, can at least find a silver lining in the incident, as he apparently will not require surgery to correct the issue.

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