Author: By Frank Curreri

VANCOUVER, BC, June 11 – He has dropped an astounding four weight classes in his pro career. On Saturday he was taunted by chants insulting his Boston heritage and hit the deck from a punch in round one. But in the face of all that adversity, Kenny Florian dug deep and somehow escaped with a win over highly-ranked featherweight Diego Nunes in the UFC 131 co-main event at Rogers Arena Saturday night. See post-fight interview

Judges scored it 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 for the Bostonian, who used takedowns and a well-rounded standup attack to hold off one of UFC featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo’s teammates.

“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” “Kenflo” said afterwards inside the Octagon to a chorus of boos. “Vancouver, despite the Bruins, thank you, I love you.”

Florian, a two-time contender for the UFC lightweight crown who was competing at 145 pounds for the first time in his career, actually seemed to get stronger and more determined midway through the fight whereas Nunes visibly slowed down just a tad.

The ever-dangerous Nunes bled profusely behind his ear and constantly threatened Florian with spinning backfists, high kicks and punching combinations. Twice he took Florian down and he even nailed Florian in the final 10 seconds of the fight and caused him to briefly drop to a knee before popping to his feet.

“I want to make a run for that belt,” a relieved Florian said. “Diego Nunes is going to be a future champion. He’s as tough as they come.”

Demian Maia vs. Mark Munoz

In a battle of top 10 middleweights, Mark Munoz survived a potent right hand that wobbled him to nudge by former title challenger Demian Maia. Maia, a former world champion Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, showed much improved standup, but Munoz stepped up his game with takedowns in the second and third rounds – as well as holding his own in the standup department and popping Maia with shots that forced the Brazilian to retreat at times. Munoz was particularly effective with ground and pound in the second round after stuffing Maia’s takedowns and making him pay with heavy leather to the hips, legs and body. See post-fight interview

Round three was a coin-toss, with Munoz – a former NCAA Division wrestling champ – scoring a takedown, but Maia threatening with a choke. The standup was back and forth in a very close round.

The judges saw it 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 for Munoz.

“He caught me in that first round, I was like ‘Wooaahh,’” Munoz said. “I was doing that stanky leg. Man, he landed a good punch in that first round.”

John-Olav Einemo vs. Dave Herman

Dave Herman and John-Olav Einemo let it all hang loose in a back-and-forth eight-minute war that became frontrunner for Fight of the Night. A former Abu Dhabi World Champion grappler who is feared for his ground game, Einemo succeeded at taking Herman down early but was unable to hold him there. Einemo, who trains with Strikeforce heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Sergei Kharitanov, seemed comfortable from that point on to engage Herman in a slugfest – despite Herman’s 14 wins via TKO. Einemo found a home early for his straight right hand and Herman, a 6’5” specimen who bears a striking facial resemblance to Super Bowl winning quarterback Peyton Manning, countered with leg kicks. See post-fight interview

The action intensified in the second round with more straight right hands from Einemo and a feisty and resilient Herman answering with a leg kick that floored the towering Norwegian. The suspense thickened when Einemo cracked “Pee Wee” Herman with a hard knee to the face and followed it up with a right hand for good measure. A bloodied and smiling Herman, who replaced Shane Carwin in this matchup and was making his UFC debut along with Einemo, responded with a furious knee of his own to Einemo’s grill and a hard left hand. It was topsy-turvy fireworks the rest of the way, with fans wondering who would crumble first. Two knees by Herman to Einemo’s chin produced the answer. Einemo fell to the canvas and Herman chased him there and rained down punches until the referee halted the action at 3 minutes 19 seconds of round two.

It was Herman’s 21st win in 23 fights. Both men were awarded Fight of the Night bonuses for their crowd-pleasing war.

Donald Cerrone vs. Vagner Rocha

It’s a safe bet that Vagner Rocha will be walking with a limp Sunday morning. Donald Cerrone is the reason why. “Cowboy” repeatedly stuffed the submission artist’s takedown attempts and punished Rocha’s lead leg for three rounds en route to a commanding unanimous decision win. On occasion, Cerrone tagged Rocha with punching combinations, but opted to play it safe with dozens of low kicks that left Rocha gimpy late in the fight and even switching stances for relief. Late in the third round, with Rocha slowed and hobbled, Cerrone amped up the assault on Rocha’s chin and floored the Brazilian. The lanky Coloradan, known for his Fight of the Night worthy performances, conceded afterward that he opted to be conservative against a very dangerous BJJ black belt. See post-fight interview

Mind power, particularly learning to perform exceptionally under pressure, has fascinated Mark Munoz for years. The obsession even compelled him to pursue a master’s degree in sports psychology several years ago. And judging by Munoz’s lofty achievements – 2001 NCAA wrestling champ and a 10-2 mark as an MMA pro – the 33-year-old Filipino-American is plenty tough from the neck up.

In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s UFC 131 clash with Demian Maia (14-2), Munoz has employed his usual bag of mental tricks, including lots of visualization techniques. The rising middleweight already battled the Brazilian jiu-jitsu wunderkind many times inside his dome.

“It’s been so many times, too many to put a number to,” Munoz said.

Does Maia ever win?

“No, never,” Munoz said. “He never wins.”

It’s virtually an unwritten rule of visualization: No matter how the imaginary bout plays out, always let it end with the other guy’s demise.

“That’s right, you always put yourself in the position where you want to be,” Munoz. “And even if he’s in the position where you think he’s strong, you think of ways to counter him and get back to where you want to be in the fight.”

A frequent training partner of UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva and the Nogueira brothers, as well as other BJJ black belts from Brazil, Munoz feels he has a strong handle on Maia’s tendencies and potential surprises.

“He’s one of the best BJJ practitioners in MMA, very dangerous on the ground,” Munoz said, citing the obvious trouble spots for dealing with a man who has finished eight of his foes with top-shelf submissions. “He’s also ever-improving on his feet and with his wrestling takedowns … I’ve seen a vast improvement in his standup. When he fought Kendall Grove and Chael Sonnen, he actually looked pretty good there, too. When (Maia) fought Anderson he was on, man. I trained with Anderson and it’s hard to catch him (with a takedown) when he’s moving like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. But Demian did tag him a few times. ”

Munoz, one of the harder-hitting ground-and-pound specialists in the UFC, said that many people have counseled him to avoid the deftly slick Maia altogether on the mat. But the Oklahoma State University grad intends to be defiant.

“I welcome the ground game as well,” Munoz said. “I want to prove that I’m not just a ground-and-pound guy or a wrestler. I want to make a statement that I’m a mixed martial artist and am improving in every aspect.”

Living and training out of Orange County, Calif., along with the likes of Jake Ellenberger, Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Krzysztof Soszynski, Munoz has also occasionally trained with Strikeforce heavyweight Fabricio Werdum, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and a BJJ black belt named Marcel Lozado, who is intimately familiar with Maia’s game.

“I’ve trained with a lot of guys that have trained with him, so it’s a very tangled web that we’ve woven,” Munoz, winner of five out of his past six fights, said of Maia. “A lot of my training partners do a lot of the things that Demian Maia does. Marcel Lozado is one of my training partners for this fight. He’s my jiu-jitsu instructor at my gym and he’s actually beaten Demian Maia in competition, so he’s very familiar with what he does. A lot of jiu-jitsu guys that I train with know his game and give me a lot of insight on what (Damian) does.”

Munoz, whose parents hail from Manila, is inspired by boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao. The two fighters have actually met on numerous occasions at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, Calif.

“Yes, I actually trained over at Wild Card Gym with Freddie Roach and I met Manny there a few times,” Munoz said. “I have a funny story to share: I went to Wild Card Gym … and they actually let me through — because they usually shut the door when Manny is training. So they let me through and Manny was just finishing his workout and was walking through and I was changing. I pulled up my shorts and Manny walked through the door with five other people and they were massaging his legs and stuff and he looked at me, I looked at him and he gestured at me like, ‘Hey, watch this.’ So he drank some water and starting yelling, ‘Aaaaah’ like he was cramping up and then a dude looked up and Manny spat water in his face. I was like, ‘No way, he just did that!’

“Then everyone started cracking up laughing and having a water fight inside of the locker room. It was pretty cool to see the camaraderie that he had with his camp. That was something I really wanted in my camp. I saw how he treated everyone outside of the ropes, outside of boxing, he is a great person. We often put people on pedestals, especially Manny Pacquiao. He’s had so much success and obviously I’m shooting to have the same thing. Just to see him outside of that arena hanging out and chilling with his buddies, it was awesome to see.”

Munoz said he once took a picture with Pacquiao and secured an autograph for his father. Just one problem: Munoz can’t find the picture.

“I have to find that picture, man, I have to get that picture,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to blow up that picture and put it up somewhere but I can’t find it! I might have to go back and get another picture with him.”

Munoz aspires to follow in Pac Man’s footsteps and he could be making some progress.

“Some have told me that I’m one of the top three or four athletes in the Phillipines. And I was like, ‘What, are you kidding me? That’s crazy.’ Because they have Manny, obviously, (WBC and WBO bantamweight champ) Nonito (Donaire Jr.), me and Brandon Vera. Filipinos are very proud of Manny and us having success in combat sports. Manny packs stadiums with Filipinos so I think that’s why the UFC wants to do shows in the Philippines to tap into that fan support and enthusiasm that the whole country brings and they want to unlock it. So I need to go there, for sure.”

More immediately, however, Munoz must figure a way to turn back the threat in front of him. He sounds so confident of victory, yet that has not always been the case.

“When I was wrestling, I had all of these negative thoughts in my head,” Munoz said. “There were so many things I did wrong that I wanted to fix. I’d say about 98 percent of the matches I lost were because of mental mistakes. A lot of it was due to my preparation leading up to the wrestling match. I lost 11 times in college and twice in MMA, and 98 percent of the time it wasn’t because the other guy was more physically gifted than me, it was because I made stupid mistakes in the match or the fight. So it’s about being prepared physically and even more mentally. I use a lot of psychological skills to prepare for my fights. A lot of people go into fights doubting themselves. When you ask somebody what it takes to become a champion, they’ll say it takes discipline, it takes desire, it takes dedication, commitment … they’ll say all of these traits that are mental attributes. A lot of people train the physical without training the mental. I do a lot of visualization. If you see it mentally, you can do it physically.”

During the course of the interview, Munoz provides a revelation: He has put his master’s degree on hold to focus on MMA. For the time being.

“I just have to do my thesis,” Munoz said. “I have my topic … I did all the course work, I just have to do my thesis on sports psychology. I’ve been out of my coursework for about a year now. I have my topic and it’s just sitting there. And my advisor hasn’t contacted me in about six months, so I think she gave up on me. I need to work on it. A thesis is six chapters and it can be anywhere from 100 to 150 pages. It takes roughly six months to do. But my topic is going to change because I’m involved in MMA now, so it will probably include wrestling and mixed martial arts.”

“It goes through my mind. It’s like having the devil and an angel on my shoulder. One voice says ‘Get your master’s degree!’ The other voice says, ‘No, you don’t need it!’ There’s that battle just going through my head. I know I need something to fall back on, I need a Plan B, so I need to go get it.”

The bout with Maia, the biggest of Munoz’s career, is just days away. Most everything from here on out will be mental fine-tuning. The voice in Munoz’s head will tell him some of the same things that he tells the athletes he coaches at wrestling camps and in MMA.

“I tell all my fighters: You know what the guy does best but you don’t want to worry about what he does, you want to concentrate on what you do best,” Munoz said. “You know in the back of your head what he does, but you go out and execute what you do. So I practice his tendencies, how to keep good posture …but at the same time I’m going to fight where I want to fight, not where he wants to fight. And if I do get there I’m going to scramble back to where I want to be.

“Before I go into the Octagon I use a psychological skill called ‘countering.’ There will be all these doubts inside of me. ‘This guy is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt,’ … But you counter it with positive, concrete facts like, ‘Oh, I’ve rolled with lots of Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts and I’ve tapped them and they don’t tap me.’ You just counter back with those positive, concrete facts.”

If you don’t like watching Sam Stout fight, then you’ve probably never seen Sam Stout fight. “Hands of Stone,” as his moniker goes, is downright masterful when it comes to energizing a crowd and holding them in suspense. The lightweight’s 10 UFC bouts have produced four Fight of the Night awards.  

“It’s not my plan,” Stout, days before meeting MMA pioneer Yves Edwards at UFC 131 in Vancouver, said of winning the coveted awards. “I come out and I fight as hard as I can every time. I like to entertain the fans and I like to slug it out. I like to hear the crowd get loud and there’s nothing I hate more than hearing them boo. People like to see standup fights and good scrambles, which I end up in a lot. I take pride in being exciting.”

The 27-year-old Canadian’s penchant for high drama usually ends with him having his hand raised; Stout has prevailed in three of his past four fights, his only setback being a split decision loss to thunder-fisted lightweight contender Jeremy Stephens. The only knock on Stout is that he hasn’t finished an opponent in nearly three and ½ years, spanning seven fights.

“Of course it bothers me that I haven’t finished those fights,” said the Shawn Tompkins protégé, “but as long as I’m winning and leaving it all in the cage then I’m not losing any sleep over it.”

Though most of Stout’s fights have been in his homeland, he has never fought professionally in Vancouver – in MMA at least. The decorated kickboxer competed in a four-man Muay Thai tournament years back, winning two fights in one night to win a North American title.

“It’s a great city and I’ve taught a seminar there,” he said of Vancouver. “I’ve got some friends there and it’s a beautiful city – one of my favorite cities – and I can’t wait to get there.”

In Yves Edwards, Stout (17-6-1) faces a gifted finisher who is equally dangerous standing and on the ground. Edwards (40-16-1) has finished 31 foes, 14 by knockout. The 34-year-old American Top Team representative has won six of his past seven.

“Of course I know about Yves Edwards because I’ve been an MMA fan since I was a kid,” Stout said. “I’ve seen lots and lots of his fights. He’s a very dangerous guy. What makes him dangerous is pretty much everything. He is a really solid kickboxer and boxer, his submission game is dangerous and he’s very experienced in the cage, so I really have to be ready for anything with him. I mean, it’s freakin’ Yves Edwards. This guy is legit and he’s been proving it for years.”

Stout’s teammate, Mark Hominick, fought Yves Edwards back at UFC 58, stunning the top lightweight with a triangle armbar submission. Hominick has long since dropped to featherweight, waging a spirited battle against UFC featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo at UFC 129 in Toronto. Stout was there in April watching from the third row, on the edge of his seat throughout the five-round thriller.

“I have so much invested in Mark emotionally; he’s like a brother to me, so when he gets hit, I get hit along with him,” Stout said. “That’s how I feel. My heart was in my stomach the whole time. There were a couple times where he scared us and got rocked with some punches but it’s a testament to what Mark is made of that he fought his way through it and came back to win the last round. And a lot of people thought Mark might finish him in that last round. So it was a rollercoaster ride watching that fight but I was happy Mark showed what kind of heart he has.

“He made a guy who is, in my opinion, one of the top pound for pound fighters in the world (Aldo), look human for the first time. So I was real proud of Mark. He has always been one of those guys that I have aspired to be like in the gym. He’s the hardest working guy I know, he’s so dedicated and lives, eats and breathes mixed martial arts. So I was just so happy for him.”

Hominick will be in Vancouver this week helping Stout fine-tune his skill set before Saturday’s event. Because he helped Hominick get ready for his title fight, Stout said he underwent a 12-week training camp versus a normal eight-week camp.

“I stepped it up for this one. I did a lot of things better for this camp,” Stout said. “I don’t like to make predictions but I’ll tell you this: You’re going to see the best Sam Stout that you’ve ever seen. I’m in the best shape of my life and I’m going to leave it all in the cage like I always do.”

In the submission grappling realm, John-Olav Einemo has already been to the mountaintop. He won the 99kg division at the 2003 ADCC World Championships, also earning the distinction as the only man to ever defeat the great Roger Gracie in the prestigious event.

But can the 6’6” Norwegian duplicate that championship success in MMA? A decade into his fight career, the answer lies in limbo. Einemo, 35, hasn’t fought in 4 and ½ years. Despite assumptions, he never retired from the game.

“I knew my skills were OK … it wasn’t my level that stopped my career, it was a lot of injury problems and personal stuff, so it was difficult to train professionally and travel all the time,” said Einemo, who has competed in countries such as Japan, Finland, the Netherlands and Abu Dhabi over the years. “I had a young son to raise so I had more responsibilities and couldn’t just think about myself and wander around the world anymore. I always wanted to come back but there never really was a good opportunity.”

Until now.

Einemo, a longtime training partner to Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem, Gegard Mousasi and Russian standout Sergei Kharitonov, is set to make his UFC debut this Saturday in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 253-pound Einemo had originally been slated to battle Shane Carwin, but a well-publicized illness suffered by Brock Lesnar forced some shuffling, pushing Carwin into the evening’s main event against Junior dos Santos. Standing opposite of Einemo inside of the cage will be Midwesterner Dave Herman, a Team Quest heavyweight who boasts a 20-2 record and has only allowed one fight to go to the judges.

“I felt a little bit disappointed, of course,” Einemo, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, said of the switch. “Shane Carwin is a bigger name. But I understand that these things happen and I have to adapt.”

Einemo doesn’t know much about Herman, other than the fact that he has a wrestling base, 5 submissions and 14 (T)KO victories – standard information available through a quick Internet search. Physically, Herman is virtually a mirror image of Einemo, only an inch shorter. Einemo said it would be a huge mistake to assume that he prefers to settle things on the mat.

“I want to be complete, I don’t just want to be a ground fighter or a wrestler,” he said. “I want to be able to stand with the best guys and go to the ground with the best guys … My chin is good, man. I have never been knocked out, not in a fight, not in practice.”

For years Einemo has been honing his standup arsenal in Holland with Golden Glory. He and his teammates often journey to Thailand for month-long training camps.

“We don’t train with the small Muay Thai guys. No chance. We take our own guys over there,” Einemo said with a chuckle. “It’s a great country for training. It’s hot, great food – it’s cheap. It’s an easy life for us there. Just our shorts and a scooter. Everybody rides one there because traffic is bad and it allows you to move between traffic and not be stuck in traffic jams.”

It is mentioned that the sight of a 6’6” man on a scooter, weaving through traffic, would be eye-catching. I ask him for a photo.

“It looks a little bit funny sometimes,” Einemo said.

One thing Einemo has proven is that he is mentally tough and never intimidated by opponents. He competed in the Abu Dhabi World Championships back in 2001 as a blue belt. In 2003, as a purple belt in BJJ, he never doubted himself against the best grapplers in the world, including the incredible force that is Roger Gracie.

“I knew that on a good day I could beat them,” Einemo said. “But I wasn’t really sure that I would win because my training before the competition wasn’t optimal; I wasn’t 100 percent and I had some injuries … But I had a good day. I won the match with Roger on points in the semifinal. I caught his back. I had his back for a great deal of the fight and I had a takedown and a reversal. It was a hard struggle. I knew about him beforehand, how he was winning the Mundials (BJJ World Championships) every year and kicking everyone’s ass.”

Gracie would avenge the loss a few years later at an Abu Dhabi superfight.

Einemo, who is fond of Roger Gracie, said he wouldn’t mind a rubber match between the two someday – in MMA. But that match could be a longshot since Gracie competes at light heavyweight and is currently under contract with Strikeforce. As for his other goals, Einemo chooses not to look too far ahead.

“I’ve had such good training and preparation and the best sparring partners, so that should take away some of the ring rust,” he said. “I’m just focused on this fight. I will do the best I can and then see who the UFC decides to give me next.”

Vancouver, British Columbia, is part of Darren Elkins’ not-too-distant past. The Indiana pipefitter fought in the Great White North back in 2007, making quick work of a Japanese fighter named Asuhiro Tsuboi.

Elkins’ encore trip to Vancouver comes this week when he clashes with hard-nosed featherweight Michihiro Omigawa on the undercard at UFC 131.

“It’s the same scenario pretty much,” said Elkins, architect of a 12-2 pro record (1-1 in the UFC). “I’m back in Vancouver fighting another Japanese fighter.”

There is, of course, a night-and-day difference in the caliber of opponent this time around. Tsuboi was a substandard 5-9-2 when Elkins dominated him. Omigawa (12-9-1), a decorated black belt judoka set for his fourth trip inside the Octagon, is much more formidable. He has toppled a handful of “name fighters”: He’s one of only two men to defeat Marlon Sandro; he bested highly regarded featherweight Hatsu Hioki, and toppled L.C. Davis, Hiroyuki Takaya and Nam Phan. In fact, since 2008, Omigawa’s stock has climbed considerably with an impressive 8-3 streak. Even in defeat during that span, no one has been able to finish him.

“I rediscovered the style that I’m good at after I went down to featherweight,” Omigawa, a former 155-pounder, said through a translator. “Every single fight is for life to me. I never want an easy opponent. The only thing in my mind is how to beat the opponent in front of me. No fight is ever easy.”

As for Elkins, Omigawa regards him as a “very well-balanced fighter” but isn’t shy about sharing his vision for the bout’s outcome.

“I will win the fight,” Omigawa vowed. “It’s not about my opponent. If I can show everything that I have then victory will follow for me.”

It would be a first in his UFC career. Omigawa has fought valiantly inside of the Octagon against No. 1 contender Chad Mendes, and lightweights Thiago Tavares and Matt Wiman. But Omigawa has yet to have his hand raised in the UFC and Elkins refuses to give him that satisfaction.

“He’s a judo guy with pretty good submissions off his back,” Elkins said of Omigawa. “He wins a lot of his fights by taking guys down and grinding them out by decision, but he likes to bang, too, and he hits really hard. It’s a tough fight. I think it will be hard for both of us to take each other down, so it should be an interesting fight. But I see myself winning any way that I have to, whether it’s by knockout or submission.”

A former high school state champion wrestler in Indiana, Elkins credits wrestling with keeping him out of trouble. Wrestling also helped him cope with peers who bullied and insulted him because of a speech impediment and crooked teeth.

“My parents always taught me to stand up for myself. They told me, ‘Don’t let anybody pick on you or beat you up,’” Elkins said. “My teeth were real crooked as a kid and I had a really bad speech problem so it was hard to understand me. A lot of kids tried to pick on me and make fun of me. My reaction was to show how tough I was and make an example of out of the person who was picking on me. And then somebody else would pick on me and I’d do the same thing until they decided, ‘Hey, I don’t want to mess with this guy anymore. He’s going to shut me up.’

“It stopped around middle school because by then I got braces, changed schools and made new friends and I had become a dominant wrestler and a lot of people didn’t want to mess with me then. I started to become real comfortable with myself.”

Elkins, 27, has an interesting side gig when he’s not training or fighting.

“My whole family, most of ‘em are pipefitters,” he said. “My dad is a pipefitter. I have three uncles – two of ‘em are pipefitters and one of ‘em is a retired pipefitter. My brother is a pipefitter, too. I have three or four cousins that are pipefitters, too. Local 597 Pipefitters. When I’m done with fighting, at least I know I can fall back on that.”

When your next opponent sports an overflowing belly like Larry the Cable Guy and a shaggy mullet that would make Billy Ray Cyrus jealous, it might be tempting to underestimate him just a tad. But former UFC champ Frank Mir promises he won’t commit that faux pas against Roy “Big Country” Nelson on Saturday night.

“Roy might be one of the toughest heavyweights; he won’t go away easily,” Mir said recently, following a training session at his Suffer Gym in Las Vegas. “He’s taken probably the most brutal beating we’ve seen so far against (Junior) Dos Santos and never cashed his chips in. Most people wouldn’t take a beating like that and keep marching forward.”

Indeed, Frank Mir is the last person on earth you would expect to overlook Roy Nelson, especially since the latter defeated him eight years ago in a famed Grappler’s Quest submission grappling match. The final score: 15-2. More than 400,000 people have watched the match on YouTube.

Mir is one of them.

“Just one time,” Mir said. “I gassed out so bad.”

Those presuming that Mir has revenge on his mind at UFC 130 should think again.

“It’s a match; it’s not the first jiu-jitsu match I’ve lost,” the 260-pounder said with a chuckle.

 Aside from the non-existent revenge motive, the long-awaited “rematch” has been robbed of other potentially sexy storylines. Both Mir and Nelson were born and raised in Las Vegas, but neither has publicly expressed the slightest hint of a rivalry or regard for local “bragging rights.” In fact, both men trained several times with each other and are extremely cordial with each other – even exchanging some friendly tweets in the weeks leading up to their showdown. Yet their clash is also not a true case of Friend versus Friend.

“I’ve never been to his house and I’ve never been to dinner with Roy,” Mir said. “But if we see each other at the gym or on the street we’re very cordial and I get along with him. He’s a gym buddy, that’s a better definition.”

So then why did Mir and Nelson, both Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts, train so seldom with each other? Was it because they eventually envisioned they might someday meet in the cage?

“I think we just have different approaches to training,” Mir said. “I don’t think Roy brings a lot of people around. He still does his own thing. Roy has his own views on how things should be done, his own outlook on things.”
 
Mir (14-5) doesn’t believe his past training sessions with Nelson (16-5) give him any special insights into The Ultimate Fighter season 10 winner’s stylistic tendencies, and vice-versa.

“No, Roy’s pretty simple,” Mir said. “He’s had about twenty fights and he hasn’t done anything drastically different. I don’t think that all of a sudden in this fight he’s going to come out like Dominick Cruz.

“Roy possesses a good skill set. One thing Roy does well is he doesn’t take chances — he likes to capitalize on his opponents’ mistakes. It’s not like he’s going to do any high-risk throws or anything, unless he’s hurt. For the most part he’s very efficient.”

Quite simply, Big Country comes to knock opponents out. Period. All but one of the robust heavyweight’s past eight wins have come by concussing foes. Nelson last submitted an opponent in 2006. If things are settled on the feet, Mir is confident he can do what Dos Santos could not. He recently asserted to reporters, ‘I hit harder than Dos Santos.’

Mir expounded on the rationale behind his attention-getting claim, mindful that some consider Dos Santos and Shane Carwin to be arguably the two hardest hitters in the UFC heavyweight division.

“The reason I said it is … the overhand left I landed on (Antonio Rodrigo) Nogueira … I’m the first person to ever drop him and I dropped him four times in seven minutes,” Mir said. “I don’t think Cheick Kongo has ever been dropped and when I hit him with the overhand left, I not only knocked him down, but if you watch I actually made him leave his feet and threw him across the cage. Dos Santos, you know, he put a beating on Mirko (Cro Cop) but he didn’t knock him out, Mirko kind of waved it off (Cro Cop suffered a fractured orbital bone and submitted due to the injury in the third round). I knocked out Mirko, so we have common opponents that can be related.

“It’s just that power is size times speed, and I am pretty quick and I also have a little more weight than he (Dos Santos) does.”

Mir’s win over Cro Cop was marked by tentativeness, a trait that robbed him of the jubilation that usually comes with defeating a legend. What disappointed Mir most wasn’t simply his conservatism – he conceded he was always wary of Cro Cop’s devastating left high kick – it was the takedown opportunities he let slip away.

“In the Mirko fight you saw me striking and then thinking, ‘Oh, let me try a shot right now,’” said Mir, who won a Nevada state wrestling championship in high school. “It wasn’t smooth off my hand combinations or my opponent exposed his leg, ‘I’ll change levels and shoot.’ That’s what pissed me off the most. Wrestling’s a weakness of mine so I want to work at it all the time. I want to get better at it. Getting takedowns and top position is a dominant strategy. Not that I need the takedowns but I don’t want to be in a position where the takedown is there, after a combination, and I don’t do it because I’m inadequate at it.”

A first-rate finisher – Mir has ended an astounding eight UFC bouts in the first round – he realizes he could be that much more formidable with reliable takedowns.

“Oh, yeah, I have a lot more submissions from the top than I do from bottom; I think everybody does,” he said. “I’m a lot more dangerous on top because now you’re carrying my weight and worrying about strikes and submissions. I’d prefer to be on top.”

One of the hallmarks of Frank Mir’s aura leading up to his fights is that he is as remarkably cool and calm as they come. He shared the secret to being so composed: He doesn’t have a fear of losing. Losses, like the grappling match to Nelson years ago and a knockout loss to Shane Carwin last year, do not haunt him in the least bit, as they might other fighters.

“You know what, maybe that’s why I stay so even keel,” Mir said. “I get more mad about things that happen in a fight than the outcome of the fights. If a guy tells me that losses bother him then that tells me that in the locker room, before the fight, he’s thinking about winning and losing. If you’re worried about the outcome then you’re not worried about how to get there. So I only worry about all of the steps in-between – the start of the fight until the end of the fight. That’s how my mind is. Maybe some people take that as me being less competitive than other people, but that’s how I think about it. I have won matches and been pissed off as all hell, and I have lost matches and been kind of happy about it afterwards because I was able to do this, this and this … and I lost because this guy was better than me in a certain aspect.”

As an example, Mir pointed to a tiny but tragic mistake he committed in his fight against Carwin.

“My wrestling against the cage, my head position, was so poor that he had head dominance on me and that was the one aspect that he beat me at,” Mir said. “Then all of the sudden he let off, threw an uppercut and stunned me and finished the fight. Out in the open, I tagged him, he moved backwards … I felt comfortable there. So I’m not mad that I lost, but that I lost the head position. 

“I went to the gym, and I don’t let the loss eat at me. It’s: This position against the cage I sucked at, what did I do wrong? It was head position, so OK, let’s work on that. I focus on that. That’s what’s going to make me better, not dwelling on the loss.”

Though he’s not worried about losing to Nelson, Mir conceded that a victory might not win him as much credit as he would like.

“I think it’s one of those things where there is more to lose than more to gain,” Mir said. “The thing that kind of sucks about fighting Roy is that if Roy wins, he’s going to look good. If he loses, then it’s just going to reaffirm people’s opinion of him, ‘Ah, see, there’s the fat guy who doesn’t take it seriously.’ So I’m kind of stuck in a situation where if I lose it will be really, really bad. I think I’ll have to win pretty devastatingly to increase my chances (of impressing people). But Roy is not an easy guy to have a devastating win over. I want to win and keep myself in the running for bigger things.”