Bryce Mitchell is back doing Bryce Mitchell things, and this time Mikey Musumeci got pulled into it. During a recent appearance on Tim Welch’s podcast, the UFC fighter gave Musumeci his flowers as a high-level grappler, then ripped apart the style that made him famous. Mitchell said Musumeci is “the best at what he does,” but made clear he has no interest in watching the kind of match Musumeci usually competes in.
Bryce Mitchell Says He “Won’t Watch” Mikey Musumeci Because It’s “Gay” But Would Grapple Him
Mitchell’s issue was not with Musumeci’s resume. It was with the look of modern submission grappling. He argued that Musumeci does not wrestle, said he “sits on his ass,” and complained about watching a man stay on his back waiting for exchanges on the mat. Mitchell also used a homophobic line while describing why he refuses to watch that style, which is likely to draw as much attention as the challenge itself.
“He’s the best at what he does. That’s great. He will not wrestle. He sits on his ass. I will not watch that, EVER, and I mean EVER. I don’t watch gay stuff. I don’t entertain it. I’m not going to watch him lay on his back and have another man crawl in there and roll around like pigs in the mud. With that being said, I respect Musumeci, and I would do a grappling match against him. I think I’m the only guy who would actually beat Musumeci at those rules. I’ll beat him with heel hooks and anything. I want to prove my grappling can beat that style.”
Even with that, Mitchell did not dismiss Musumeci as a fraud or hype job. He said he respects him and would take a grappling match against him. Mitchell went a step further and claimed he may be the one person who could beat Musumeci under those rules, saying he would win with heel hooks “and anything” because he wants to show his own grappling can beat that style.
That is a sizeabe claim when Musumeci’s track record is stacked with wins at the top end of the sport. He is a five-time IBJJF world champion, and he became the promotion’s first submission grappling world titleholder when he beat Cleber Sousa in 2022. Musumeci’s profile has kept growing since then. By 2024, coverage around his run pointed to wins over names such as Shinya Aoki and Gabriel Sousa.
By early 2026, Musumeci was also being covered in connection with UFC BJJ after a title defense and a public callout of Arman Tsarukyan, showing he had become a crossover name well beyond hardcore jiu-jitsu circles. Mitchell, for his part, is not coming from nowhere when he talks grappling. In MMA he has 19 wins with nine submission victories on his record, including an arm-triangle finish over Santiago Luna in June 2026. He also has a long submission history that includes five rear-naked chokes and a rare twister, so his confidence in a grappling match is easy to understand even if calling for heel hooks against Musumeci sounds like a massive swing.
Mitchell’s latest rant also lands in a long line of offbeat and inflammatory public comments. He has pushed flat-earth claims, said gravity is not real, called for a debate with Joe Rogan about the shape of the planet, and in early 2025 drew heavy backlash after praising Adolf Hitler, denying the Holocaust, and making anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks on his podcast. UFC CEO Dana White called those comments “beyond disgusting,” while Mitchell later said he was “definitely not a Nazi” and admitted his words caused offense.
Mitchell is framing the matchup like a referendum on what “real” grappling should look like. Whether anything comes from it is another story, but Mitchell just handed the grappling world a quote set that is going to travel fast.
