Bryce Mitchell had a new fight-week injury story before his Santiago Luna bout at UFC Vegas 118, and this one involved laundry detergent, a soaked shirt, and burned nipples.
Mitchell meets Luna on June 6 at the Meta Apex after Victor Henry withdrew with a knee injury. The opponent change was serious. The detergent story came from Mitchell’s UFC Vegas 118 media day interview.
“It was accidentally and uh I’ll tell you what what happened is I had some laundry detergent that got stuck in my shirt and I started doing a workout in that shirt and the laundry detergent got all in my skin and the suds were coming out of my shirt and I didn’t know what was happening. So, I kept training. I was actually with T.J. and there were suds coming out and we was laughing. At first, we thought it was I was sweating out all the milk that I drank cuz I drank a gallon of milk. And then we were like then it started getting bubbly and foamy and I was like, ‘No, bro, that’s not milk. That’s soap.’”
Watch the full media day interview below:
Mitchell’s Detergent Burn Came Before A Late Opponent Switch
The detergent burn did not knock Mitchell off the card. Once he realized the foam was soap, the damage had already started.
“And then by that time we figured out it was soap, it was my nipples was already on fire and and it actually literally just like burnt my nipples bad, man. And uh so, make sure you know, you be careful about what detergent you use because uh your nipples are sensitive to that type of stuff.”
Mitchell enters UFC Vegas 118 with a verified 18-3 MMA record, including nine submission wins, eight decisions, and one knockout. He owns one of the rarest finishes in UFC history, a twister submission over Matt Sayles in 2019, and later added a decision win over Edson Barboza. Since that Barboza win, Mitchell has gone 2-3, with losses to Ilia Topuria, Josh Emmett, and Jean Silva mixed around wins over Dan Ige and Kron Gracie.
Henry’s withdrawal changed the matchup on short notice. Mitchell said Henry’s coach, Josh Barnett, reached out directly after the injury, and Mitchell praised both men for how they handled it.
“I’ve only talked to Josh once. He messaged me right when Victor got hurt and he said, ‘Hey, Victor Victor can’t take the fight. His his uh knee is just totally torn.’ And I just felt really really good uh hearing from his coach. And Victor messaged me, too. And that’s what you call a class act right there because he had no incentive to message me and say, ‘Hey, my guy’s hurt.’ But he wanted to tell me as quick as possible, be as transparent as possible. And uh I really respect Mr. Barnett and uh Mr. Henry for that. And God bless him and I hope and pray that he heals up fast. I’ve been praying for him a bunch.
“And that just makes me even more grateful um because a lot of stuff goes wrong with us. We have little injuries and stuff like that we can complain about, but Victor Henry’s out for a year. You know, he has to get a surgery. He can’t walk right now. So, remember that next time you’re complaining about a weight cut or whatever one of these fighters is complaining about, you know, it it could generally be worse.”
Mitchell’s recent UFC run has swung between big wins and hard losses. Against Luna, he gets a chance to start building momentum at bantamweight after the opponent change and the detergent burn.
