Bryce Mitchell has officially pulled out of his scheduled grappling match at the upcoming Pit Submission Series event – while also calling out Karate Combat for altering a promotional image of him in a way he found unflattering.

The match, originally set for Pit Submission Series 12, would have seen Mitchell take on Israeli MMA prospect Ilay Barzilay.
However, he announced his withdrawal publicly before even notifying the promotion:

I want to let y’all know I’m pulling out of my grappling match on Friday.

This is my first time announcing it, Karate Combat don’t even know yet.
So I’m literally announcing it myself before I tell anybody.

I don’t want my words to get twisted and I don’t quite trust them with my words.

Mitchell gave a straightforward reason for pulling out, explaining that he has a significant UFC fight lined up and doesn’t want to risk an injury beforehand:

I’m pulling out of the match and reason being is, the great news is I’ve got a big matchup coming up, a big fight coming up.
I don’t know the exact details on the fight but I’m just telling y’all something’s coming up and please be patient with me, okay?

I’m being patient too, I wanna fight too and I can’t wait for this next fight.
I’m prioritizing the fight over a grappling match, it’s not worth it for me knowing I got a fight coming up now to do a grappling match on Friday.

He then shifted his focus to Karate Combat’s promotional material, specifically the edited image of him used to advertise the match:

Here’s the thing… Karate Combat, I love y’all but still y’all did me dirty, okay?

You posted that CGI photo of me, you did up my ears and you did up my eyebrows and whatever you did to my face.
It don’t look like me, okay? I’m just telling you; you took a photo of me and then you modified it, and then you posted it on the roster.

The photo looks feminine. I’m not gay and y’all don’t need to be queering me out, okay?
Because I don’t like that s**t.

So since y’all tried to queer me out, now I’m calling you out on it. You need to be respectful to your fighters and post real photos of them on the roster.
Don’t be CGIing us and making us look feminine.

Nobody’s gonna like that and I think somebody did that with bad intentions.
I’m not stupid. I’m not as stupid as y’all think at least, but I forgive you.

 

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