Former UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir knows a thing or two about the men who will fight in the UFC 200 co-main event, Brock Lesnar and Mark Hunt. With a win over Lesnar and losses to both, Mir is perhaps better positioned than anyone to comment on the upcoming fight.
“Not that’s anybody likes to be hit, but Brock for whatever reason has shown much more of a dramatic response to the negativity of those shots,” Mir said during his Phone Booth Fighting podcast. “To the point where he’s not asleep, it isn’t like he got knocked out, he’s not getting dropped, but he just turns his face away from adversity. That’s a bad thing when fighting Mark Hunt, who again I think is one of the hardest punchers in the division…
“I’m betting on Mark. He’s been in there more consistently the last couple of years against really game opponents. I think that once their strengths match up against each other, it’s a hard takedown. You’ve never really seen anybody come through and just blast Mark onto his butt in the first minute or two of a match.”
But that’s not to say Mir is predicting an easy night for Hunt, who beat him via KO back in March.
“If he is able to take Hunt down and control him, Hunt has been known to get tired on the ground and get fatigued. It really comes down to who is able to get their game plan.”
Frank defeated Brock via submission in Brock’s UFC debut at UFC 81, but was knocked out by Lesnar in their UFC 100 rematch. When the return of Lesnar to MMA was announced during last weekend’s UFC 199 pay-per-view, speculation on who his opponent would be set social media on fire. Mir most likely would have been the favorite, but the former champ is currently suspended from competition after a March drug test, administered by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), came back positive. Mir could be suspended for two years once his case is concluded.
But even if he finds himself unable to compete until March 2018, Mir still thinks a rubber match between he and Lesnar would be a big fight..
“I think that’s he’s a competitive guy,” Mir said. “If he’s going to step in the Octagon, he’s gonna want to get paid as much as he can for that appearance. I mean, he’s closing in on 40. So why not a fight with me? A fight with me is going to be a much bigger payday, the two of us together is going to make much more of an impact than him versus anybody else. The storyline just isn’t going to be the same. The interest is not gonna be the same.”
“I think even two years from now when I come out of the suspension, a fight with Lesnar is still – if he still wants to come back again – is still a huge fight,” he added. “It’s massive because of what he brings to the table, what I bring to the table and the history we have together.”
Lesnar vs. Hunt takes place July 9th at UFC 200 in Las Vegas, Nevada.