With the majority of top-ranked UFC featherweights booked, Bryce Mitchell thinks Chan Sung Jung is a logical next fight.
Unbeaten rising contender Mitchell (15-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) is coming off a lopsided win over Edson Barboza at UFC 272 in March and is now targeting the upper echelon of the division. Jung (17-7 MMA, 7-4 UFC) fell short in his pursuit of UFC gold a second time when he was dominated and stopped by featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 273, but “The Korean Zombie” remains a credentialed name that Mitchell is interested in.
“‘Korean Zombie’ is the highest-ranked guy that I could possibly fight and the reason that I believe that he is because he’s a two-time title contender,” Mitchell said on The Schaub Show. “He went and fought for the belt two times. There’s other guys that are up there, that are really high up. Ortega’s booked, Holloway’s booked, but there’s other guys that might be up there but they didn’t fight for the belt twice.
“So if you go in there and beat ‘Zombie’ better than most champs – Aldo and Volk beat him. I think it took Volk maybe two rounds. Say I go in there and beat ‘Korean Zombie’ in first round, that would give me grounds to fight Volk immediately. I’d say I just fought the dude he fought and did a little bit better, and that would be the best fight.”
Jung is owner of the first twister submission in UFC history. The only other fighter to pull it off in the octagon is Mitchell, who submitted Matt Sayles with the unique move. So “Thug Nasty” would like to put up his twister against Jung’s.
“I also think it’s twister vs. twister,” Mitchell said. “If one of us twister’s each other that settles it right there on who’s got the better twister.”
He continued, “I want to fight for the belt, and I think I win all of them. I think whoever they put me in there with, I’m winning.”