{"id":13217,"date":"2019-04-25T19:59:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T01:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=13217"},"modified":"2019-04-25T19:59:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T01:59:31","slug":"harding-student-doubles-as-mma-fighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2019\/04\/25\/harding-student-doubles-as-mma-fighter\/","title":{"rendered":"Harding student doubles as MMA fighter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When senior economics major Bryce Mitchell is not studying for tests, he is fighting professionally for the Ultimate Fight Championship (UFC).<\/p>\n

Mitchell was born and raised in Arkansas, where he gained a love for fighting in his backyard with his neighbors. Over time, that love turned into a living.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always imagined myself in UFC,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt just took a little longer than I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell\u2019s best friend, and Harding alumnus, Kidron Cannon, said he always knew Mitchell would make it to the UFC. Cannon said Mitchell has put an incredible amount of work to get to this level of competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a fighter, he\u2019s insanely tenacious and hardworking,\u201d Cannon said. \u201cHe\u2019s probably the hardest-working, most dedicated person I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell, who is also known as \u201cThug Nasty\u201d in the octagon, started fighting Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) when he was 16 years old. Mitchell did not know much about striking or jiu-jitsu, but his dedication to the sport helped him progress quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I always imagined myself in the UFC, it just took a little\u00a0longer than I thought.\u00a0\u2013 Bryce \u201cThug Nasty\u201d Mitchell,\u00a0Harding senior<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Soon after starting his career, many people took notice of Mitchell\u2019s skill. Cannon said the UFC called Mitchell to be a part of their show, \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter,\u201d a competition to win a contract with the UFC. Although Mitchell did not win, he caught the attention of the UFC and was called to fight in Las Vegas where he had his first fight.<\/p>\n

After struggling through a groin injury, Mitchell returned to the octagon last month. The fight was in Nashville,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tennessee, where he not only won his fight, but also the \u201cFight of the Night.\u201d This award is given out by the UFC to the best, most entertaining fight of that night. After winning this honor, Mitchell was skyrocketed into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Even with his newfound fame, one of Mitchell\u2019s former professors, Dr. Jim Shelton, said he has remained the same humble guy he was before. Shelton said he watched Mitchell\u2019s press conference a few weeks ago and saw the same politeness and humor he saw from him in class.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just Bryce,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cThat was just really refreshing to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannon said he is eager to continue to watch Mitchell\u2019s career grow and believes he will soon be a UFC world-champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is my best friend and he deserves everything he\u2019s got and more,\u201d Cannon said. \u201cAnd I want to be there with him through it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell is currently 11-1-0 in his UFC career, with 8 wins by submission. He fights in the featherweight class. The details for his next fight have yet to be determined.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When senior economics major Bryce Mitchell is not studying for tests, he is fighting professionally for the Ultimate Fight Championship (UFC). Mitchell was born and raised in Arkansas, where he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15138,"featured_media":13218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}