Frank Mir
Mir talks Lesnar, Nogueira and more
Staying with their usual event traditions, the UFC treated their Fight Club members to a special Q & A session prior to Friday afternoon’s official weigh-ins. For this weekend’s UFC 137 event, former heavyweight champion Frank Mir answered questions from the gallery of fans in attendance. Here is a collection of highlights from the hour-long event.
On his feud with Brock Lesnar:
“The issues with Brock’s health have taken a lot of wind out of my sails. It’s kind of hard to want to call a guy out and face him when he’s dealing with those kinds of personal issues. He’s a father. He’s a husband and he’s dealing with health issues. I can’t think about fighting him when things are along these lines. Once he comes out and has a great performance against Alistair; I’m sure all of those emotions will bubble up again.”
“On December 10th I’ll be in Toronto fighting Antonio Nogueira. For our first fight he had a few issues coming in that effected his performance so I feel this time around it’s put up or shut up. I’m a fighter so I understand physical issues come up before fights. It happens and that’s what rematches are for.”
On being a legend:
“I don’t think of myself that way because with every fight I’m showing improvement. When legendary status is tagged onto your name it usually means you are no longer fighting for a title. You’re on the pay per view card but you are never going to fight for a title again.”
On facing Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos down the line:
“I think dos Santos has the best boxing in our division but when it comes to striking I feel I have a bigger arsenal. I can use different angles of attack, knees, elbows and kicks. On the ground I’m not real sure because we haven’t seen much from him there. Junior is really good at escaping and keeping the fight on his feet.”
“Velasquez is a pain in the butt for anyone to face. He is so well rounded and has great head movement. He was able to toss Brock around and no one had been able to do that. One thing he has going for him and this is the scariest thing for any heavyweight is his cardio. As heavyweights we all know that we are going to get tired at some point but against Velasquez you know he doesn’t get tired.”
Lesnar vs. Overeem:
“I think it comes down to being a style fight. Overeem is one of the most decorated strikers we have in the division. With that being said he still has to defend the shot from Lesnar. When you have a match-up between a striker and a grappler it doesn’t work out well for the striker too often. There are exceptions to the rule like Anderson Silva, but if you go down a list of 100 strikers vs. 100 grapplers, 98 of the wrestlers will win because they control the takedown and where the fight takes place.
“I just don’t see who Alistair is going to stop Brock’s takedown. Lesnar’s fight against Velasquez will actually work out to his benefit. Maybe for the Velasquez fight he would have came out and maybe thrown a jab, move his head and thought he could throw a couple of strikes. That would have gotten him in trouble against Overeem. Now after the Velasquez fight, and him doing the little disco dance, he realizes he doesn’t want to exchange with people. Now he’s going to blast a jab, cover up and put his head in Overeem’s chest, plant him against the cage and rip his legs out from underneath him. Then it’s going to be lights out.”