UFC To Decide Frank Mir’s Fighting Future Later This Week
Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir picked up the dubious distinction of four straight losses when he was outstruck 139-5 by Alistair Overeem at last Saturday’s UFC 169 from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
To be fair, all four of Mir’s losses during the recent snide did come to former champions. Overeem was the former Strikeforce and DREAM heavyweight champ, and he also held the K-1 World Grand Prix title at the same time.
Add that to Mir’s previous defeats at the hands of former UFC champs Josh Barnett and Junior dos Santos and Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner Daniel Cormier, and the experienced veteran is undoubtedly on the worst stretch of his career.
A stretch so bad that many are calling for his retirement, release, or both.
While the initial reaction is that Mir is obviously done, it’s ultimately up to UFC president Dana White and his team. Speaking to MMA Mania at the UFC 169 post-fight presser, White detailed that he won’t be making an official decision on Mir’s fighting future until later this week:
“It’s not a decision we will make tonight. We will get together next week and we will figure out what we want to do. It wasn’t the fight I expected to see.”
That’s probably the best course of action; because the knee-jerk reaction would be to simply cut Mir after he’s mounted little to no offense against some of the best heavyweights the UFC has to offer.
But those were the best, after all.
Maybe Mir does have some exciting fights left in the tank; he’s just not ever going to be a title contender again. Continuously feeding him to the truly elite fighters is bad for business in that Mir has gotten destroyed and his opponents have gotten a name win that doesn’t really prove much.
After all, Overeem was viciously knocked out in his previous two bouts against Antonio Silva and Travis Browne (despite winning both early on), yet he made it look more than easy against Mir.
The bottom line is that the game has passed Mir by. He received another therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to use testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT) for his fight with Overeem, but it’s clearly not making a difference. If he needs TRT to keep getting destroyed like that then it’s time to hang up the gloves.
There’s simply nothing left for Mir to accomplish. He’s a two-time champ who has fought a laundry list of accomplished MMA heavyweights. The only thing he can do now is tarnish his considerable legacy, and it looks like he’s already begun to do that.
We know that old habits die hard and Mir will likely fight on if given the chance. Whether he does or not is up to White, and we’ll find out if Mir will return later this week. Do you want to see him return to the Octagon, or have you see enough?
