Miami — Featherweight Jean Silva had the biggest star turn at Saturday’s UFC 314 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, FL.
Yes, Alexander Volkanovski got his belt back at age 36, and Paddy Pimblett decimated Michael Chandler, but both of those fighters were already stars. Brazil’s Silva arrived at the event, doing more than his share of the promotion ahead of a fight with Bryce Mitchell.
When he choked Mitchell out unconscious, Silva proved he’d been doing more than just barking. And backstage following the event, an upbeat Silva pitched one idea out of left field: getting Dana White to be best man at his wedding, if the UFC CEO and President would pay for the wedding singer.
“We should be married already, but we really want Belo, a Brazilian singer, to actually sing at the wedding ceremony. But dude, come on, bring your rate down, because I’m going to have to get four more fights to pay for it,” Silva said of his pending nuptials. “You guys think that if I invite Dana to be my best man, he’ll pay for Belo’s rate?”
One journalist on hand agreed to ask, and popped the question to White later in the evening. After clarifying just what it was his role in all of it would be (paying for the wedding singer), he laughed. “I’m going to need more information on this, but I’m probably in.”
Did Dana White just agree to be Jean Silva's best man, and pay for his wedding singer?
"I'm probably in." #UFC314 pic.twitter.com/zl6wbuRVyj
— Cageside Press (@Cagesidepress) April 13, 2025
Things have never looked brighter for Jean Silva. He’s now 5-0 in the UFC, with three straight post-fight bonuses and wins over names like Mitchell and Drew Dober (at lightweight). Saturday’s fight saw him showboating and picking his spots, with Mitchell, a competent fighter, simply outmatched.
“We had a lot of plans, we had different paths to victory, we had some of them that involved knockouts, we had others that involved submissions, some of them involved actually taking some damage,” Silva said regarding his performance. “But it was interesting because we had all these different pathways to victory and I was very happy to be able to actually put them all together and make it happen and get it that way.”
When it comes to the Fighting Nerds, the Brazilian fight camp of which Jean Silva is a member alongside Caio Borralho, Mauricio Ruffy, Carlos Prates and others, the featherweight suggested “get used to this. You’d better get used to this happening.”
One thing did catch the Brazilian by surprise on Saturday: the odds of him winning by submission were long. “I really didn’t know that. People really apparently think I’m not good at jiu-jitsu or grappling. It’s crazy. I’m Brazilian man!”
Watch Jean Silva’s full UFC 314 post-fight press conference appearance above.
