It’s a long shot. Anything involving Brock Lesnar and MMA is a long shot. But stranger things have happened, and it sounds like Frank Mir is ready to get strange.
After knocking out fellow heavyweight Antonio Silva in the first round of Sunday night’s UFC Fight Night 61 main event, Mir said at the post-fight news conference that he would “absolutely” be open to a rubber match.
“Absolutely, I think it would be a huge, big fight, and I think it would put my name even higher up. I think a rubber match between the two of us would be a phenomenal fight,” Mir said at the presser (h/t Fox Sports). “To keep that anywhere in the works, I had to get a win tonight.”
Lesnar is now ensconced back in pro wrestling, but as most fans know, money talks, and it has a big megaphone for Lesnar‘s ears. A third match between Lesnar and Mir—one of only three men to beat him in pro MMA and easily the one with whom he formed his bitterest MMA rivalry—would put up excellent numbers at the pay-per-view box office.
Frank Mir goes from retirement talk to potential trilogy with Brock Lesnar http://t.co/YqYrTinKXQ #UFC #UFCPOA pic.twitter.com/LCCXIpeYpZ
— FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) February 23, 2015
However, in terms of absolute value, it makes sense for the 35-year-old Mir (17-9) to use whatever fighting energy he has left to earn other “fun” fights in the UFC. The company could also use his big name and championship pedigree to help test and promote up-and-comers in the division.
But it’s clear that doesn’t hold the same appeal for Mir, and probably wouldn’t for the UFC, which could certainly use a pay-per-view bonanza like the ones reaped in by the first two Mir-Lesnar bouts.
Back in 2008, Mir used a surprise kneebar to submit Lesnar and pull off the improbable victory.
Between this and the 2009 rematch—which was for the UFC heavyweight title and was the main event of UFC 100—Mir and Lesnar engaged in a nonstop war of words, with an angry Lesnar growing more and more frothy over Mir’s smirking taunts. Mir clearly viewed Lesnar as an inferior intellect inside the cage, but Lesnar won the rematch and the title by TKO.
It’s unknown whether a rubber match is actually viable. But Mir’s success over Silva and his subsequent comments certainly kept the spark of hope alive for the many fans who would pay money to see such an event.
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