Frank Mir doesn’t need to be reminded that his fight with Andrei Arlovski was a long time coming.
It’s only been on his mind for, oh, about a decade or so.
Mir and Arlovski have seemed on a collision course since the days before The Ultimate Fighter. Back when mainstream sports outlets wouldn’t touch mixed martial arts with a 10-foot pole, internet message boards buzzed with debate over what would go down when the UFC heavyweight division’s young guns — the jiu-jitsu wiz and the knockout artist — finally collided.
Improbably, a bout discussed as far back as 2002 will finally go down in 2105, when the pair collide at UFC 191 in Las Vegas, a battle of former champions which will have title-race implications at 265 pounds.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that you never say never,” Mir told MMAFighting.com. “For a long, long time, this looked like the match that just wasn’t meant to be, but I always knew that if the opportunity to fight Andrei came up, I’d take it.”
In one manner, the opportunity actually arose faster than Mir expected. Coming off a pair of first-round knockouts just a few months apart, the 36-year-old Mir expected to take a solid summer vacation before even thinking of returning. Then a phone call came from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva.
“I had planned on taking a real break, letting my family have a real summer off instead of having to have them conform to the life of a fighter,” Mir said. “But the call came, and, I mean, for one thing, the UFC has had my back so many times that I didn’t want to say no, and the fact it’s Arlovski is a big deal.”
Mir seemed unstoppable in his first heyday, racking up submissions and winning and snapping Tim Sylvia’s arm to win the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 48 in one of the first iconic moments of the Zuffa era. Then an infamous motorcycle accident in 2004 put his career into question.
Arlovski, meanwhile, shook off a pair of losses early in his UFC tenure and went on a run of his own, with a string of fast finishes. That included a 41-second submission of Sylvia in an interim title fight at UFC 51 as Mir stayed on the sidelines.
Mir’s recovery came along slowly, so Arlovski was promoted to the full championship. By the time Mir found his groove again, Arlovski had lost his title and was on his way out of the company.
“At the time it seemed like the worst thing, but I’ve always said it was a blessing in disguise,” Mir said of the series of events a decade ago. “Yeah, it was disappointing back then to see Andrei with what I thought was my belt. But everything happens for a reason, and I probably wouldn’t be here today, in 2015, in a co-main event, fighting Arlovski if it hadn’t gone down like that.”
Of course, the heavyweight title isn’t the only bit of shared history between Mir and Arlovski. Both guys have also been urged, quite vociferously at times, to quit the sport.
Mir was thought to be washed up when he didn’t look impressive in his return from the motorcycle accident. He lost two of his first three fights, including an infamous, 69-second knockout loss to Brandon Vera at UFC 65, after which the then-undefeated Vera proclaimed he would win both the heavyweight and light heavyweight titles.
An undercard win over Antoni Hardonk at 74 likely saved his UFC career, then a landmark win over Brock Lesnar at UFC 81 catapulted Mir into the stardom predicted of him years earlier, a run which included an interim title reign.
A four-fight losing streak from 2012-14, however, started the retirement cries anew, before this year’s knockouts of Antonio Silva and Todd Duffee put him right back into the thick of things.
“Not everyone gets a third chance, you know?” Mir said. “The second time around, I got pretty arrogant and I thought I knew everything. When I had the losing streak, I had to swallow my pride and admit I needed another change of approach.”
While Mir’s career has resembled a roller coaster, Arlovski’s had one specific nosedive: A string of four straight losses in 2009-11, three of them by rather violent knockouts.
But the 36-year-old Arlovski has become one of MMA’s great comeback stories, with five straight wins (three in the UFC), culminating in his knockout of Travis Browne at UFC 187 in one of the most exciting one-round fights you’ll ever see.
Mir and Arlovski trained together at Jackson’s MMA for a spell, and while they’re not best friends, Mir, who has never been afraid to tell you about what he doesn’t like, has nothing but admiration for his fellow former champ.
“I’ve got just the highest admiration for the guy,” Mir said. “I had people telling me to retire, but I never had it as bad as Andrei heard it.
“Here’s the thing I admire most: He was so willing to re-learn everything,” Mir continued. “He realized his old ways had hit a wall and he could have played out the string and just cashed paychecks, but he completely recommitted to what he was doing. He didn’t buy the notion that he had a bad chin, no matter what people was telling him. He worked so hard, he absorbed so many new ideas working with Greg, I have so much respect for what’s he done. “
Arlovski, likewise, sees an opponent who has been willing to evolve.
“Back then he was dangerous on the ground he was a black belt, but now he likes to fight everywhere,” Arlovski said at Thursday’s UFC 191 teleconference. “Not only black belt, but he also has the ability to knock someone out. Frank and I are old-school warriors, I’m sure the fans have looked forward to the fight.”
That’s a sentiment Mir shares.
“We’ve both been around this business long enough to know that we both gotta do what we have to do,” he said. “We both have to feed our families. We’re both going to go all out, but I’ll shake Andrei’s hand before the fight and I’ll shake it again afterwards.”