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Don’t call it a comeback; he has been here for years. It is only a two-fight win streak, but UFC heavyweight Frank Mir has shown that he is in the midst of a career resurgence. With both wins from his current streak coming from devastating knockouts against high-level strikers, Mir has shown he still has the passion to continue his fighting career.
Along with that revamped passion has come a newly improved boxing game, which was evident in his most recent win; a first round knockout over Todd Duffee. Mir has shown over the years that he has good tools in his stand-up arsenal, specifically in the clinch with knees and elbows, but the MMA community wanted to see just how far along Mir has come with his boxing.
In Mir’s last two fights against Duffee and Antonio Silva, his striking was on a spectacular level that the MMA world has yet to see. The boxing improvement he showed was a breath of fresh air, as Mir needs to take as little damage as possible this late in his career. Before Mir’s last two wins, he was on a four-fight losing streak in which two were TKO’S at the hands of Junior Dos Santos and Josh Barnett, with the other two being unanimous decision losses to Daniel Cormier and Alistair Overeem.
The fight with Silva was do-or-die for Mir’s career, and he came away with a big knockout win against an absolute monster, finishing Silva off within 2 minutes by dropping the Brazilian with a big right hook to the chin.
His most recent fight against Duffee did not go like most people thought it would have. MMA professionals and analysts thought that if the fight stayed standing, it would be an easy knockout for Duffee, and with Mir’s jujitsu pedigree, a submission win could happen just as easily.
What transpired was the exact opposite though, as Mir engaged Duffy on the feet from the start of the first round, and knocked him out a minute and thirteen seconds later with one of the most vicious left hands in UFC history. You could tell Mir wanted to win that fight, and it was easy to see that he wanted to prove any doubters wrong by doing it by knockout.
Over the past two fights, Mir has not only shown that he wants to continue his MMA career, but that he wants to make another run at the UFC heavyweight title currently held by Fabricio Werdum. Mir is not necessarily whom you would call a star, but he is still marketable because of how long he has been in the sport and whom he has fought. If Mir can string together a couple more impressive victories against high-ranked opponents, a title shot could be closer than most people think.
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