Patchy Mix experienced what many other first-time UFC fighters go through Saturday.
After UFC 316, the former Bellator bantamweight champion acknowledged the disappointment and said he’ll rebound. Mix (20-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) made his highly anticipated promotional debut at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., as a betting favorite against Mario Bautista (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC), but never seemed to get started in a unanimous decision loss (30-27, 30-27, 29-28).
“Tough night for me in the office,” Mix posted on Facebook. “But I appreciate the people that have supported and been along for the ride. Would have liked to do more and made adjustments. I will come back stronger from this moment.”
Bautista outstruck Mix every round and won his eighth straight fight. The victory is on the heels of a decision win over former featherweight champion Jose Aldo. Mix, whose fiancee is recent UFC women’s flyweight title challenger Tatiana Suarez, had not fought in a little more than a year after an unceremonious exit from the PFL after it bought Bellator and folded the promotion.
Mix was about a 2-1 betting favorite in the fight, and the consensus was that he would beat Bautista and might even find himself promptly in the bantamweight title picture. In fact, his manager predicted that might be the case with a win. In the MMA Junkie reader predictions, Mix got nearly 80 percent of the vote, and he was a unanimous pick from MMA Junkie’s 11 staff members.
The 31-year-old Las Vegas-based Mix hadn’t lost since 2020, when he was upset by Juan Archuleta in Bellator’s bantamweight tournament. But less than three years later, he won Bellator’s belt and a $1 million prize against Raufeon Stots, then had title defenses against Sergio Pettis and Magomed Magomedov before he arrived in the UFC.
