MIAMI – Jean Silva believes he could send his UFC 314 opponent into an early retirement.

UFC 314 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) takes place Saturday at Kaseya Center, where Silva (15-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) will have the opportunity to settle his differences with Bryce Mitchell. The featherweight main card bout has seen a heated build, and Silva believes if he performs to his expectations, Mitchell (17-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) could call it a career after Saturday’s event.

“He’s an excellent fighter,” Silva told reporters through an interpreter at a pre-fight news conference. “Listen, he’s fought Ilia Topuria, he beat Edson Barboza, Dan Ige – everything was going good until he got knocked out by Josh Emmett. I think that really messed up his brain and his emotions, and everything just kind of went wrong. You can tell he’s not looking at this the same way that he used to look at it before. It just really messed him up.

“The fight’s going to go: he’s going to try to take me down, I’m going to defend it and I’m going to throw some shots at his head. Might knock him out in the first, in the second. We’ll see, but maybe he’ll need to retire after this because he’s going to have some brain damage after this one.”

If he does record a knockout, it would be business as usual for Silva in the UFC. Through four fights with the promotion, he’s finished every opponent, and only reached the third round once. Mitchell has only been knocked out once in his career, which happened to be a moment in consideration for Knockout of the Year in 2023.

Silva may be in Mitchell’s head considering the antics that took place at the pre-fight press conference last month where Silva trolled the flat earth believer by bringing a globe on stage. Silva also took exception to Mitchell’s pro-Adolf Hitler comments he made on the first episode of his new podcast.

While the two have gone back and forth on social media in the days leading up to UFC 314, Silva wants to be clear that he never has disrespected Mitchell’s abilities as a fighter.

“I never disrespected him as a fighter, his skills or his abilities,” Silva said. “He’s fought really tough guys in the UFC. … He can believe what he wants to believe, but it upsets me that he doesn’t see the position he’s in as a public person and doesn’t mind his words, disrespects people and children and everything else. He talks a lot about God but wears t-shirt with God with guns around it. That makes no sense to me. It’s a lot of contradictions.”

Ultimately, Silva doesn’t believe Mitchell is taking the pre-fight interactions to heart – at least he hopes not.

“I really hope that he’s trying to sell the fight and promote the fight because some of the opinions and beliefs that he’s got about the guy with the mustache is just incredible,” Silva said. “It’s – I don’t even know what to say, but I don’t think he’s taking it personally that hard because for him to take it personally, I think I would have to speak about God, and I’m not going to speak badly about God.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 314.