Kron Gracie returns to the octagon after a 19-month layoff this Saturday on the main card of UFC 310 against Bryce Mitchell, with both the opponent and card placement being a surprise to a lot of people.

Gracie looks to snap a two-fight losing streak as he faces a top-15 ranked UFC featherweight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. In his most recent outing, Gracie lost a lopsided decision to Charles Jourdain at UFC 288 in March 2023. The 36-year-old Gracie admits his performance was not a great one, but that has led to a lot of backlash in regards to his bout with Mitchell being on the main card over fights such as Movsar Evloev vs. Aljamain Sterling — a bout in the same division that could produce a title challenger in 2025.

As far as Gracie is concerned, the bout placement wasn’t his call, but he has a message to fans who are unhappy with the UFC’s decision.

“I think it’s funny because the people always have something to say,” Gracie told MMA Fighting. “And it’s interesting that people who would complain about something like that are probably the people who are not even paying for the pay-per-view, they’re streaming it for free. You’re stealing the pay-per-view and they’re the ones complaining about where the fight is. If anything, [Sterling vs. Evloev is] a free fight for the fans that they get to watch sooner. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal obviously because I don’t really care about that kind of situation.

“But I think that the placement of the fight is kind of not the most important thing and I don’t care where I’m at on the card. The sooner, the better really. I get to go on with my life after that.”

In his first UFC bout, the son of PRIDE veteran Rickson Gracie submitted Alex Caceres in the first round of UFC on ESPN 1 in February 2019. Gracie returned eight months later against longtime veteran Cub Swanson and lost a unanimous decision, before returning for the Jourdain fight following an over three-year hiatus.

Now he faces Mitchell, and in Gracie’s opinion, if fans are upset about him being on the main card, it’s an easier sell with Mitchell being the other half of the contest.

“Obviously the UFC knows what they’re doing and they’re in the business of making fights and matchmaking,” Gracie said. “So no one does it better than them. I’m sure they didn’t do this on spitefulness. I’m sure that this is a business deal and it is what it is, you know? ...

“I didn’t make this decision, and Bryce is a big name too. I’ve always had Bryce on my mind because I always thought he was a potential opponent because I knew he had a big name, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t be on the main card.”

Following the loss to Jourdain, Gracie released a statement on his Instagram stories discussing why the fight went the way that it did, and why he didn’t throw any punches in the 15-minute affair.

“In a lifetime of fighting, it’s always been a fight to the death,” Gracie wrote. “Understand the situation and willing to limit myself, even that being said I threw no punches because of bad advice and tried to please the jiu-jitsu community two days before my fight. First fight in my life I didn’t throw a punch, going back to my old ways.”

Gracie was hoping to return to the octagon sooner, but he says “life got in the way,” and wouldn’t further elaborate. But heading into his fourth octagon appearance, Gracie is steadfast that he’ll return to his old school ways that have found him success over the years in combat sports.

“Well I learned that lesson right away,” Gracie explained. “I learned it as soon as the fight was over. I’ve always fought, I’ve always been kind of my [own] head coach and made my, my decisions and everything’s gone well. In my whole life, even with jiu-jitsu, I was running my own jiu-jitsu training and with MMA, I always had people around me helping me and supporting me, but I ultimately made my own decisions and this was kind of not my decision to make and I paid the price.

“I would have liked to come back and train and show people some of my skills sooner, but that didn’t happen. So now we’re here, over a year later, I’m happy to be able to come out and show my skills to the world and see what we can do.”

Mitchell makes his first octagon appearance of 2024. In his most recent bout, “Thug Nasty” was on the receiving end of one of the most brutal and scary knockouts in UFC history by an overhand right of Josh Emmett at UFC 296 in December 2023.

Gracie didn’t view Mitchell’s knockout loss as a wake-up call, but as yet another stark reminder and acceptance of how dangerous the fight game can be. Regardless of what happened a year ago, Gracie is ready for a game opponent on Saturday.

“Yeah, I mean, this is the fight business, you can be ready to expect anything,” Gracie said. “I grew up with this not as a spectator, I grew up with it being a reality. For my dad and for my grandfather and for me, and for everyone around me, it was always a reality of fighting. It’s never a joke. Some people think I take it too [seriously] and when it comes around, media people are like, ‘Oh, why are you not happy and joking about this?’ Because I know this. I know the severity of the fight game So it’s not a surprise to me that that happens and I’m kind of like really aware of that situation. That’s why I’m not always so happy about fighting.

“But Bryce is a tough opponent. He’s a top-15 guy, he’s a grappler, so maybe it could be a different fight than the striking guys that I’ve been fighting. So we’ll see how he approaches this fight. We don’t know if he’s going to run away, or if he’s gonna try to attack me, and I think it’s just a good matchup.

“I think in general, the better the guys get, the better the fight’s going to get, and that could be good or bad for me, but I think that’s gonna create a better fight. Not to dog Jourdain or anything, and I had a shitty performance, but he would just run away. He was terrified of me. So it’s like, when someone’s not willing to fight as much as I am, it’s going to make a difficult fight no matter what.”