Mixed martial arts heavyweight legends collide at UFC Fight Night 85 this weekend (Saturday March 19) in Brisbane, Australia as Mark Hunt and Frank Mir go at it. Both men have storied careers that ran parallel but never crossed over paths until this point, with Mir as the former UFC heavyweight champion and poster boy of the promotion, and Hunt mostly making his name in the glory days of Japanese MMA and also as a decorated K-1 kickboxer.
Now with the two finally set to meet for the first time in their illustrious timelines, we’ve seen quite a jovial rivalry up until this point. An extremely rare complimentary trash talk video can be seen at the end of this article, but has certainly been overshadowed by Frank Mir’s most recent comments. Check out what the heavyweight submission specialist told MMAJunkie.com during a recent interview. It’s chilling.
“I love leg locks and heel hooks and kneebars. They’re complex and hard to avoid. I feel like if we get down to the ground, defending his legs is going to be very difficult, especially because his main concern is getting up – not worrying about his feet.”
“I have the hip drive that when I grab something, it’s not going to be uncomfortable. He’s going to have to make the decision of it he wants to continue fighting or go ahead and lose that fight. When I say continue fighting, I mean if he taps, he can continue on (with his career). Kneebars and heel hooks at his age could take him out of competition for an extremely long time.”
“Even when we’re striking, I feel very comfortable that I’ll be winning the MMA aspect of the standup fight,” Mir said. “That’s because there’s takedowns involved. Mark can’t just come in and throw a four-piece combination and a low kick. He has to be worried about me grabbing his leg and taking him down and fighting his way back up. It changes the striking aspect. For my striking, I’ve learned to adapt it right off the bat for MMA. Even my jiu-jitsu, I adapt it very much for MMA.”
“I’ve finished fights from my feet, I’ve finished fights with my ground-and-pound, and I’ve finished fights from my back with a submission, from top with submission,” Mir said. “You name it, and I’ve finished a fight that way. Mark can’t the same thing. If he hasn’t finished the fight by knockout or TKO, how can he finish the fight?”
So, in short, the message from Mir is tap and you can continue fighting, if not, it may be the end of Mark Hunt’s fighting career. So much for the fun and games we were first seeing between these two legends of the game.
In closing, we could well see the end of either man’s career on Saturday down under, as a loss at this stage, particularly a brutal finish, could well mark the conclusion of their long stints as mixed martial artists. Let’s hope not.
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