Frank Mir reveals he failed to crack $1,000,000 paydays for UFC fights with Brock Lesnar: ‘It blew my mind’
Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Frank Mir claims he failed to crack the $1,000,000 mark in either of his massive fights with fellow former titleholder, Brock Lesnar during his time with the UFC – featuring in blockbuster pay-per-view fights against the latter on two separate occasions.
Mir, a former undisputed heavyweight champion under the banner of the UFC, initially met WWE superstar, Lesnar back in 2008 in the co-main event of a UFC 81 card, submitting the latter with a stunning opening round kneebar.
Competing in the main event of the monumental UFC 100 event in the summer of 2009 against Lesnar, Mir would suffer an eventual second round ground strikes TKO loss to the latter.
Frank Mir admits he was not fairly compensated during his UFC tenure
Reflecting on his time with the promotion and his period in various other promotions since his 2016 Octagon departure, Mir revealed he failed to crack the million dollar mark in either of his heralded fights against Lesnar.
“Not at all,” Frank Mir told TalkSPORT reporter, Jordan Ellis when asked if he felt he had been failr compensated during his UFC tenure. “For example, I saw a boxing match between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder – their second fight – I think we [him and Brock Lesnar] breat their pay-per-view buys. Both those guys made multiple millions of dollars, I never hit seven figures. That made me realize, ‘Oh, wow. I was the main event of that card [UFC 100], and I didn’t get seven figures and these guys got eight figures.’”
“It blew my mind,” Frank Mir explained. “And that was probably my first opening to go, ‘This card generated $50,000,000, who made the money?’ So, that’s one of the things that I want to fix about our sport, when a card makes $25,000,000, the company can $10,000,000, but the rest is divided by the fighters.” [Transcribed by MMA Mania]
Last competing in professional mixed martial arts at Bellator 231 back in October 2019, Mir managed to hand a unanimous decision loss to fellow former UFC heavyweight, Roy Nelson in Uncasville, Connecticut.