DALLAS, TX - MAY 12: David Branch poses on the scale during the UFC 211 weigh-in at the American Airlines Center on May 12, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

David Branch responds to Luke Rockhold’s white belt comments from on UFC Tonight.

Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold returns to the cage after a roughly 15-month layoff and is greeted by former World Series of Fighting middleweight and light heavyweight champion David Branch. Both fighters are hoping to stake their claim to the next middleweight title shot in an increasingly murky and unclear division.

During an interview on UFC Tonight with Daniel Cormier and Kenny Florian, Rockhold was confident about his skills compared to his opponent’s, to say the least.

“He thinks he can box, but he can’t box with me,” Rockhold told the UFC Tonight crew. “He thinks he can grapple, but I’ll make him look like a white belt. He thinks he can wrestle. He has no idea what wrestling is.”

Rockhold is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so the confidence isn’t unfounded. On the other side, Branch is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and comes from the Gracie lineage under Renzo Gracie, so it’s not exactly like the two aren’t on even ground.

“He can say whatever he wants to say, he’s got to believe what he wants to believe,” Branch said. “He can believe in Santa Claus, I don’t. He can believe in the Easter Bunny, I don’t. It doesn’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter if he says I’m a pink belt or my black belt is fake. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t encourage me to do anything besides what I’m programmed to do and that’s seek and destroy and destruct. That’s all that’s on my mind, destruction and destroy.”

Cormier, Rockhold’s teammate at the American Kickboxing Academy, suggested Rockhold has to fight at range to avoid getting close to Branch, arguably his mistake against Michael Bisping at UFC 199.

“He’s going to try to do what he is going to try to do, and I’m going to do what I’m going to do,” Branch said. “I think that would be a smart thing, to keep away from me, but that’s going to be impossible to do.”

Regardless of Rockhold’s comments or criticisms of Branch, which includes challenging the legitimacy of Branch’s reign as a two-weight world champion in World Series of Fighting, it doesn’t phase Branch who not only has an immense amount of experience in MMA but battling real life issues.

“My mind is a steel castle, no body can get inside of my mind. I think what the misconception is of people inside of this business and people who are seeing me now in the UFC, is they’re still judging me by what I was when I first came in. I am a completely different person and I don’t think people really understand that.”

Branch added: “I think I have one of the strongest minds in the business.”