UFC MMA Fighter Bio Frank Mir
68Frank Mir
Record: 12-3
UFC Record: 10-3
Hometown: Las Vegas, NV
Fights out of: Las Vegas, NV
Strengths: exceptional grappling skills
Interesting facts:
•Frank Mir practically grew up in the gym, spending much of his young life at his fathers Kenpo Karate School.
•The original UFC inspired the Mirs to learn Jiu-Jitsu and Frank to start wrestling in high school.
•At UFC 48, Frank Mir broke the arm of Tim Silvia with an arm bar to win the UFC heavyweight championship. This led Ricardo Pires, his Jiu-Jitsu trainer of 5 years, to award him his black belt by throwing it at him.
•Mir is a former bouncer at the Spearmint Rhino strip club, but still remains on their staff as the Director of Security.
•He also works for the WEC (World Extreme Cagefighting) as a commentator.
•In September of 2004, Mir was in a severe motorcycle accident. He was told that he would never fight again. Mir has managed to defeat the odds and return to the Octagon. He never lost his heavyweight title, but was rather stripped of it after 14months of being unable to fight.
Overview:
This bio was written in response to a question posed to me about my opinion of Frank Mir and whether he was good enough to be a champion. Having watched Frank Mir from the beginning of his UFC career, Frank has been somewhat of a disappointment. His ability to quickly transition on the ground and lock his opponent into a submission is unmatched in the Heavyweight division. This was very evident in the Brock Lesnar fight where he was taking a beating from Brock, but all it took was a split second of leaving a leg exposed and Brock was drug to the ground and submitted. It took a lot of courage to come back after that devastation motorcycle accident, but Frank’s work ethic has always been questioned. He just doesn’t put the time in at the gym to come into his fights in shape, and often gases as the fight goes along, and some of his other MMA skills, such as his striking, need sharpening. The reason I call Frank a disappointment because when I see Frank, I see someone who has been around martial arts his entire life, and someone who possess good athletic ability, but no effort to fine tune it to take himself to the next level. If he were to have the work ethic of someone such as Rich Franklin, Mir could have been one of the all time greats. To his credit, the Frank Mir we saw at UFC 92 against Nogueira is definitely a much improved fighter. He looked to be in much better shape and his striking improved by leaps and bounds. As a fan, I hope this isn’t a fluke, but rather a born-again fighter ready to do what it takes to be his best. Affliction currently holds the contracts on several of the top Heavyweight fighters, so the UFC needs someone like Frank Mir to live up to his potential to keep the Heavyweight division of the UFC strong.
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I like watching Frank also, but I just think he has so much more potential. You being from the midwest also, you know how we do it. Were the product of blue collar workers, with most of our parents and granparents growing up on the farms or working all day under miserable conditions in the factories. As a generalization, we're tough, down to earth people who value a hard days work. This is part of the reason that I prefer Brock Lesnar. He is one of us. A simple, hard working midwestern. I'm not sure how big wrestling is in Illinois, but wresting and fighting is huge in north central Ohio. I actually watched a couple of Brocks wrestling matches at Minnesota before he even came to the UFC. I believe that Franks only hope is to catch him in a submission. If he tries to wrestle or strike with Brock, he will be in trouble. Look at those huge hands of Brock. Randy completely ducked out of the way of his punch but his hands were so big he still connected with the back of Randy's head and rocked him.
Oh, I agree with what you say about us midwserners...I actually come from a small farm town and worked in those conditions for a time. I only want Mir to win because when Lesner was doing interviews before the first Lesner / Mir fight, he was a cocky pompus ass...especially for someone who had never fought in the UFC before.
He was talking shit about how he was going to steamroll Mir, punch him in the fce and dominate him. He didn't take in to consideration that Mir was the Heavyweight Champ in the UFC at one point which means regardless of age and size...he has skills.
I absolutely believe that Mir was getting his ass handed to him by Lesnar the first time and lucked out in getting that heel hook submission, but I think this time it's going to be much harder for Lesnar.
Mir showed a vast improvement when he fought Nogera especially in his stand-up. He was bigger, stronger and faster than he ever was and even he said it was the first time he really trained hard for a fight. He said he trained so hard because he knew how good Nogera was and how he would have been beaten by him if he would have trained like he regularly did. I think since Lesnar beat Randy it sort of sparked Mir to take him as serious because Lesnar is a force in the HW division.
Regardless, I know it will be a good fight and that is all I really want anyway.
There are quite a few people who don't like the way Lesnar speaks. When I hear it I catch myself blaming it on the WWE, and I don't like Rashad because of the way he speaks to his opponents and acts after he wins. Come to think about, maybe I do have a little bit of a double standard when it comes to Brock, but I think the first impressions are a big thing. When I first saw Brock he was wrestling in the National Championship for Minnessota. I didn't see the cockiness. I remember Rashad first for one of his fights in the Ultimate Fighter show where he was showboating before anyone even through a punch, and I remember Matt Hughes telling him afterward that he was glad that he wasn't on his team (and I have a lot of respect for Matt Hughes as a fighter).
Frank needs to be training hard for this fight, especially cardio, because the truth is that Brock will have a really difficult time lasting 5 rounds, first of all because he has to cut a good amount of weight to reach the 265 mark, and becuase he is so muscular, his body burns energy and de-hydrates at a much faster rate than most people do. If Frank can survive a couple rounds and tires Brock out, he stands a good chance of catching Brock making a mistake and Frank is definetly very good at exploiting an opponents mistake. I think this will make for a good match, and I really hope so because I'm not sure the G.S.P. fight will be.
Mir looked very good when he won his belt!!!
He did, but Brock is a completely different fighter.
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Frank Mir is a good grappler.
nice hub
I really starting hating Mir when he was a coach on TUF....I think he is a real jerk and a little ignorant...But he is no doubt deserving of a title shot...
Adam B 2 years ago
I am a fan even thought he did act like a douchebag at times as coach on TUF. I hope he destroy's Brock Lesner with his new and improved striking game.