Frank Mir took step one in his “Vision Quest” on Saturday night when he leapfrogged a pack of hungry UFC heavyweights to what could be the biggest money match in company history.
In the 1985 movie, Matthew Modine played a wrestler who was totally and completely obsessed with beating a muscular monster named “Shute,” the unbeatable local high school wrestling champion.
“Shute” was a fictional character. At least he was until 1999, when Brock Lesnar showed up at the University of Minnesota, a decade later became the living embodiment of that character as the UFC heavyweight champion.
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Like the lead character in the movie, Mir, who steamrolled Cheick Kongo on Saturday night at UFC 107, seems completely obsessed with getting a shot at the monster who beat, taunted and humiliated him after winning at UFC 100, the biggest show in North American MMA history, on July 11.
The moment is hard to forget for anyone who saw it, as Lesnar’s post-fight behavior became the biggest story in sports for a few days. But it’s harder still for Mir, the loser of the match.
A week ago, there was very little interest in a third Mir vs. Lesnar fight because of how handily Lesnar beat Mir the last time. But now, provided Mir doesn’t lose and Lesnar can return, the fight would likely do more business than any fight the UFC would put on in 2010.
Mir (14-4) may not be the rightful No. 1 contender, but there is no other heavyweight who would garner anywhere near the public interest, as much because of Mir’s verbal talents as his physical ones. In a world where hype overrides substance in drumming up interest, Mir reigns supreme as the UFC’s best talker among fighters.
Of course, no matter how well a fighter talks, you still have to win your way to title shots, and Mir did so in impressive fashion Saturday, needing only 1:12 to beat Kongo (24-6-1) at the FedEx Forum.
The new Mir, coming in at 264.5 pounds, the heaviest of his career, knocked Kongo down with a looping left hand, the first punch he threw in the fight. On the ground, Mir grabbed a guillotine choke and Kongo eventually passed out, stunning the crowd of 13,896.
Most of the fans booed Mir when he came out, largely because of his verbal taunts of Kongo on the countdown show that aired this past week. Mir downgraded Kongo’s striking, saying it wasn’t world class, and said that when it came to wrestling and submissions, Kongo was the worst guy in the heavyweight division.
“When you talk as much [expletive] as he did, you’d better back it up,” UFC president Dana White said after the show.
Mir made no bones about his desire to fight Lesnar, who is currently battling a case of diverticulitis.
“The first thing is, I want him to get healthy,” said Mir. “But when he gets healthy, he may not want to get too healthy.”
Right now, there is no target date for when Lesnar will be back in the cage. It will be 4-6 weeks before doctors can determine how well his recovery has gone and whether or not he will need major surgery, which would put him out for several more months.
White said if Lesnar needs the surgery, there will be an interim champion. If not, they’ll get a contender ready. Shane Carwin was initially the top contender, though he’s also out of action with a knee injury. The other top contenders, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Cain Velasquez, are scheduled to fight on Feb. 21 in Sydney, Australia.
Mir felt his performance should put him ahead of Velasquez, generally thought to have the most potential at this point of the four contenders.
“When Velasquez beat Kongo, he couldn’t knock him out or submit him in three rounds,” said Mir. “I almost knocked him out and did submit him.”
But if Mir could pick his next opponent, it would be Nogueira.
“He’s talked a lot of crap about me,” said Mir, who is the only person to have ever finished the legendary Brazilian in his entire career, in a match where Nogueira clearly wasn’t himself coming off a staph infection and a knee injury. “Look, he could say it once, but he says it so often he might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I had a staph infection and a major knee injury when I fought Frank Mir.’
“But if I was really bothered by it, I’d get back at him by never giving him a rematch, that way I’d always have it over him.”
Mir said that if Velasquez wins, he’d have no interest in the Nogueira fight, feeling it wouldn’t at that point benefit his career.
As for his other two rivals for a title shot, Velasquez and Carwin, Mir has his own scouting report.
“Cain Velasquez, I feel, is the best wrestler in the division,” he said. “And he’s got great cardio. But he’s lacking punching power.”
“Shane Carwin, he’s a better Brock Lesnar than Brock Lesnar. He’s just as powerful, if not more powerful. But his defense is his weakness. He got knocked down by Gabriel Gonzaga.”
Mir was largely responsible for the late interest in the show with his televised taunts of Kongo, as well as the unveiling of his new physique, built on heavy powerlifting and Olympic lifting movements. Mir felt he simply didn’t have the power to contend with Lesnar in their second meeting, which came about after Mir submitted Lesnar with a kneebar in 90 seconds in Lesnar’s first UFC match.
But there were a lot of questions whether adding so much weight so quickly wouldn’t play havoc with his conditioning, since even the smaller Mir had questionable stamina.
As it turned out, that question was never answered.
“I showed that I could rebound from a bad loss,” Mir said. “I had all the pressure on me. Another loss would have been devastating to my career. I talked so much that it put even more pressure on me. But if you saw me walking to the ring, you could see the pressure didn’t affect me.”
Mir’s goal is to get up to around 280 pounds, when his previous best conditioned weight was between 240-252.
“I want to get to where I’m cutting 15-20 pounds just to make 265 pounds,” said Mir, regarding his goal for the Lesnar showdown. “That’s going to take some time. But that way I’ll be the same size he is. I may not be quite as strong as he is, but I’ll be strong enough to neutralize his strength, and then it will come down to who is the better technical fighter. He will never be as technical a fighter as I am because he started too late.”
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