Frank Mir – Preparing His Own Welcome for Lesnar

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By Thomas Gerbasi

Frank Mir’s face won’t betray his true feelings, and his voice stays calm as he answers the question, but you know the former heavyweight champion is smiling on the inside when asked if sees any parallels between his 2003 bout with Tank Abbott and his Saturday fight with Brock Lesnar.

“Yeah, I see a lot of parallels,” he deadpans, refusing to give any more than that response until pressed.

“It’s a new guy coming in who’s hyped up and who is expected to do well for the UFC, and I’m put in front of him as a test,” he elaborates.

Then he pauses before continuing.

“But it doesn’t seem to work out that well for the newcomer.”

In 2003, the career of Frank Mir was in a precarious position. Seen as the future of the UFC division after two Octagon wins built his record to 4-0, the Las Vegan hit bottom in July of 2002 when he was stopped in a single round by veteran Ian Freeman. His next bout was to be against the comebacking Abbott, a one-dimensional but entertaining sort who had been out of the Octagon for the previous five years. His return met with snickers from the hardcore fans, but enough casual followers came on board to ensure that UFC 41 was going to be a big event for the Tank. And Mir was the foil.

46 seconds later, Mir wasn’t just Abbott’s foil, he was his conqueror, with a toe hold ending the Californian’s night in emphatic fashion. Mir would go on to win his next three bouts, including an arm-breaking victory over Tim Sylvia in June of 2004 that earned him the UFC heavyweight title.

Three months later, a motorcycle accident almost ended his career and his life. Luckily, Mir survived. The career resurrection would take a little longer though, and when he finally returned to the Octagon almost two years later, he would lose two bouts (to Marcio Cruz and Brandon Vera) sandwiched around a lackluster decision win over Dan Christison. The losses were just the latest low points he had to fight through.

“I guess like anything else, there are highs and lows,” said Mir. “But your family and friends get you through the low points, and you just ride it out. You keep pushing forward no matter how discouraging it can be.”

But just when it appeared that all Frank Mir’s promise had truly ended on that Las Vegas road in September of 2004, and that he was finished as a heavyweight contender, he rebounded, submitting Antoni Hardonk in 77 seconds last August, his first submission win since beating Sylvia three years earlier.

“I thought it was the end of all the questioning, but I guess it’s just the beginning of the end of all the questioning of whether I’m healed up or not,” he chuckles. “So each fight in front of me, I’m just trying to get back in the mix again and I want to keep proving myself as a legitimate threat again.”

That next fight in front of him is on Saturday against WWE star Brock Lesnar, and again, he is in the position of playing the foil to the heavily-hyped newcomer.

He likes that role.

“I think it’s easier to be an underdog because whenever you’re already expected to win even before you go in there, that puts undue pressure on yourself,” admits Mir, “whereas when no one is expecting anything of you, you can kinda just relax and perform.”

Against Lesnar, who also has a stack of amateur wrestling accolades and a NCAA Championship to his name, Mir will have no pressure whatsoever because all eyes will be on his opponent, wondering if the Minnesotan has what it takes to compete at the elite level in mixed martial arts. If Mir loses, well, he was expected to. If he wins, that’s two victories in a row and a return to the title picture – a return that can be even quicker if he wins and former victim Sylvia wins his interim title bout against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the UFC 81 main event.

“I think a lot of where I’m gonna be in the mix of things is gonna depend on Tim Sylvia and Nogueira’s fight,” Mir concurs. “If Nogueira pulls off the victory, I’m gonna probably have a couple more fights before I get a title shot. If Tim Sylvia wins, I’m someone who has a win over his head and that will definitely be a card I can play to get into a title shot.”

First things first though, and for Mir, that means preparing for Lesnar, who only has one MMA fight to his name. Normally, that wouldn’t be a good thing for Mir, who likes to watch tapes on his opponents, but given Lesnar’s wrestling pedigree, he kinda knows what to expect on fight night.

“It would be nice for there to be film on your opponent, so you can kinda see things, but for the most part, I’m not expecting to see Cro Cop-type kicks or Andrei Arlovski’s speedy hands,” said Mir. “It’s his second fight and he has a strong wrestling background, and I don’t see him really stepping outside of that too much for his first fight in the UFC. He’s gonna use takedowns and ground and pound and that’s pretty much gonna be his strategy. Knowing that, we’ll train for that.”

He’ll also train to give Lesnar a painful introduction to the UFC, which obviously means one of his various fight-ending submissions. But whereas Mir used to be a one-dimensional submission artist with little to back himself up with if Plan A didn’t work out, he now approaches the game a lot differently, knowing that not everyone is going to be Tank Abbott.

“I think the difference is now that I’ve accomplished enough to know that I have other tools,” he said. “If you survive that first submission attempt that’s not all there is. I think in the past, once that was stopped, it was like ‘well, that was my Sunday punch; I’m still here, you’re still here – now what do we do?’ (Laughs) Now I work on having a lot more tools, so I can say ‘Plan A didn’t work, Plan B is working, Plan C may work, let’s go back to Plan A if he’s loosened up enough to try that maneuver again,’ and I’m looking for the finish the whole time.”

“I’m somebody who works on the complete game, not just one aspect of it,” he continues. “A lot of guys get obsessed with striking or submissions, and that’s all they stick to and that’s the only angle they have to win the fight. I’m just trying to be as complete a martial artist as possible, so I’m working standup, ground, wrestling, jiu-jitsu – all of it together.”

It may have taken a dose of his own mortality – in a literal and figurative sense – for Frank Mir to realize that sometimes natural ability and being 6-3, 240 pounds and under 30 years old doesn’t mean that you are invincible. It just means that more is expected of you and that only hard work and dedication can get you to your full potential. If he wins on Saturday night, he will move one step closer to that goal, and at the same time will let the world know that making Frank Mir an underdog is a very dangerous thing.

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