Jean Silva Thanks Bryce Mitchell For His Newfound Fame After UFC 314

One of the more memorable images of Saturday’s UFC 314 fight card was Jean Silva standing over the prone form of Bryce Mitchel while he barked at his vanquished — and unconscious— foe. The win earned Silva his fifth UFC stoppage victory and his third straight $50,000 fight night bonus. It also earned Silva, at least according to him, the title of “the people’s hero.”

UFC 314: Jean Silva As The ‘People’s Hero’

Heading into Saturday’s UFC 314 pay-per-view card, Mitchell was best known outside of MMA circles as the guy who said on the first episode of his podcast, “I honestly think that Hitler was a good guy, based upon my own research, not my public education indoctrination. … He fought for his country. He wanted to purify it by kicking the greedy Jews out that were destroying his country and turning them all into gays.”

Mitchell will likely never shake the deserved negative press he received for his comments. As for Silva, he thinks his submission win over Mitchell helped him in the eyes of many.

“Now, I’m pretty sure I’m the people’s hero,” Silva said at the UFC 314 post-fight press conference via MMA Junkie. “If they needed one, Jean ‘The Lord’ Silva is here.”

UFC 314: Jean Silva Thanks Bryce Mitchell

As for the image of Silva standing over Mitchell after choking him out, Silva spoke to Ariel Helwani about that.

“I have to thank Bryce Mitchell for all this fame that I have,” Silva said via a translator Monday. “He was the one that kept saying my name in the media, and I’m really just reaping the benefits of being spoken about all the time. So people, because they didn’t agree with what he was saying, all of the sudden, they just started supporting me.

“I wasn’t really talking. I wasn’t really saying anything. I was just barking.”

As for the choke, Silva said that technique was one he and his team, The Fighting Nerds, drilled before the event.

“We actually trained this submission a lot,” Silva said. “We trained for about two months to do this submission exactly like that. We trained because we needed to have this submission with Bryce Mitchell, and I wanted to show my jiu-jitsu, my grappling. I wanted to show that all my skills are above all those other levels. So this is exactly the way I wanted the submission to be.”

With the win, Silva moved to 16-2 overall and 5-0 under the UFC banner. He entered UFC 314 as an unranked fighter in the official UFC featherweight rankings. When those rankings are updated, expect Silva to at least take Mitchell’s No. 13 spot.

Jean Silva Sets His Sights On Champion Alexander Volkanovski

As for what’s next for the 28-year-old Brazilian.

“I think I’d like to aim directly to the belt,” Silva said. “I believe I have the credentials, and if this is good for the UFC, I’d like to do it. If not, we’ll have somebody who will bring me as close as possible to this goal.

“I believe that between me and (Alexander) Volkanovski, [we] would have a fantastic fight. I like him very, very much, but I think this would be a good fight for me, and I could probably go for a knockout in the first or second round.”

Volkanovski, a former UFC featherweight champ, regained the vacant 145-pound belt in the main event of UFC 314, beating Diego Lopes via decision.

“If we would take maybe two months to remove his belt, I’m totally in favor of that,” Silva continued on the topic of Volkanovski. “I think this would be a fabulous fight, and the people would love it.

“I completely understand if UFC doesn’t find it the right moment to do it right now, but in two months, I would find it very important or very adequate for me to remove his belt. And once I defend this belt, I’m the type of fighter who likes to fight three or four times if [UFC CEO] Dana [White] agrees with this.”

With his win over Mitchell, Silva moved to 2-0 in the UFC in 2025.

The next pay-per-view card on the UFC schedule is UFC 315 on Saturday, May 10 from Bell Centre in Montreal.