Frank Mir and the Art of the Unlikeliest Comeback

[FUZO]

TweetFrank Mir and the Art of the Unlikeliest ComebackBy Thomas Gerbasi

Flash back to Frank Mir’s dark days of 2005 and tell him that in a couple of years he will not only be back in the UFC, but that he will also be one win away from







regaining a portion of the title he never lost in the Octagon. He probably wouldn’t have laughed, but he would have looked at you as if you were mocking him, playing some cruel joke on a 26-year old whose career was considered over after a serious motorcycle accident a year earlier.

“I wouldn’t have believed them,” he said in December of 2008, when asked what his reaction would have been if told that he would rise from the depths and regain his career and his life. “Not where I was in my life at that point.”

Mir was lost after being hit by a car while riding his motorcycle in September of 2004. Physically, he was told he would never fight again after breaking his leg in two places. Mentally, he had lost the edge that had gotten him a world title in the first place. And even before that, Mir had started to slide, started to rely on his athleticism and technique to carry him through. If he got you in the first two minutes, you were done. Take him into the second round, and you had a good chance of winning the fight, no matter who you were.

Eventually, Mir would make it back physically, but his performances against Marcio Cruz, Dan Christison, and Brandon Vera were dismal. It wasn’t until a must win fight against Antoni Hardonk in August of 2007 that Mir realized that it would take training, dedication, and hard work to compete at the elite level.

Mir beat Hardonk that night, and after some rough early moments against Brock Lesnar in February, he submitted the future heavyweight champion. On Saturday, he can complete his comeback by beating Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for the interim UFC heavyweight title. And win or lose, Mir, now 29, approaches life in the Octagon a lot differently than he has in the past.

“I feel like I’ve earned it more,” said Mir of his remarkable return to the title picture. “In the fights in the past I didn’t train well for them, so even in victory, sometimes you’d see me and I wasn’t elated. I didn’t deserve to win. I caught somebody like Tim Sylvia, and you could see in my face after the fight that I knew I hadn’t earned it. And it’s not because of what I did in the ring, but it’s what I did outside the ring. Now after this fight, whether I win or lose, you’ll see me smile because I know that I earned the right to be there because of all the time and effort I put into it. That’s what I’m proud about. Anybody can go and win a fight – we saw that with Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture. One lucky punch and it’s your night - that doesn’t mean you deserved it. That doesn’t mean you put in the hard work and earned it. Win or lose, you earn it outside the ring.”

It was a tough lesson to learn, especially when lessons in this sport are dished out with punches and kicks, but Mir finally got on board, and just in time, considering that he is going to be facing the indefatigable Nogueira this weekend at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“He’s a great martial artist and that’s what I look up to,” said Mir. “I have a lot of respect for him.”

And despite a spotty performance by Nogueira in his 2007 UFC debut against Heath Herring and two rounds of being on the receiving end of Tim Sylvia’s bombs before he came back in the third round and submitted ‘The Maine-iac’ in the third, Mir doesn’t think the former PRIDE heavyweight king has lost anything off his fastball.

“He’s so savvy and smart, he’s cunning, sets traps for people, and he’s extremely durable,” said Mir. “I don’t think that goes away. In many of his fights he’s lost the first minute or first round, and that’s what makes Nogueira so invincible. Just because you’re winning the first round means nothing. A lot of guys, once you get up on ‘em, you can front run and they’ll quit. Nogueira doesn’t even care – it’s who wins at the end of the fight that matters.”

A true thinking man’s fighter who takes the philosophical end of the game and mixes it in with the finality of a series of bone-breaking submissions, Mir was seemingly destined for greatness when he first stepped into the Octagon at 22 years old and submitted Roberto Traven in just 65 seconds. But like many 22 year olds, he eventually lost his way before straightening up and getting back to what got fight fans so excited the first time around. So it was interesting to see Mir interact with the young guns he coached on season eight of The Ultimate Fighter. Some, like Junie Browning, fell short of Mir’s expectations in terms of what he wanted to see from a martial artist; others like Eliot Marshall were more in line with the Las Vegan’s ideal.

But Mir’s main problem with the whole reality TV experience is that the philosophy he was imparting to his eight man team wasn’t always getting out to the audience watching at home.

“I thought that was immensely important, and I really tried,” said Mir. “When I had a conversation that was five minutes long, for four and a half minutes I would be talking about Miyamoto Musashi and the way to approach combat, and even bring up quotes from Nietzsche, and all of a sudden the last 30 seconds I had that pumping rage where it’s “yeah, in the end just go in there and break his arm and bash him,” which all athletes do, but they cut out all the other philosophical stuff I said and just focused on what I consider the
negative if you take it as an isolated quote. But I should have realized that when I signed on – it’s reality TV. People aren’t excited listening about how to control your breathing and steady the mind and be like a mirror. They don’t want to hear me quoting Zen to have the “no mind” and to approach it that way, and in the end, when your opponent makes a mistake, you just drop the hammer and you crush him and you never let him bring his head back up. They just talk about dropping the hammer, crushing him and never letting him get his head back up.”

At least the ones that mattered – the fighters – got it.

“A lot of them got it,” said Mir. “Eliot Marshall’s already there. Krysztof (Soszynski) and George Roop are already there. They’re very tough guys, disciplined, and they take it very seriously.”

And strangely enough, Mir feels that the biggest beneficiary of The Ultimate Fighter experience was the man in the mirror.

“I learned more from them than they probably learned from me,” he said. “They have so many different approaches to the game that I learned about the human mind. I can only dissect myself so many different times. I have eight different points of view now, so how could it not multiply immensely?”

There’s a commonly used phrase that can apply to almost everyone that says “Old too soon, wise too late.” Frank Mir wants to shake that phrase up a bit on Saturday night by showing that he’s peaking – mentally and physically – at precisely the right time. And if he can strap the championship belt around his waist a second time?

“It will be sweeter this time around,” he said.

[gator_mclusky]

TweetI like Mir! I hope he pulls it out.

gator

[BIGSARGE]

TweetYEAH AFTER WATING ROAD TO 92 THE OTHER NIGHT IM DEF PULLING FOR MIR.

[gator_mclusky]

TweetWell....he proved himself!!!!!!! Mad props to him!!!!!!!!!!!

[BIGMOFO]

TweetIM GLAD HE WON, IM READY TO SEE HIM AND BROCK FIGHT AGAIN

[BIGSARGE]

TweetOH FOR SURE. IM PULLING FOR MIR THIS TIME.