A UFC heavyweight matchup between former champ Frank Mir (14-5) and “TUF 10″ finalist Brendan Schaub (7-1) looks to be a real possibility for sometime in the New Year.
MMAWeekly.com is reporting that verbal agreements have been made between the two fighters but no bout agreements have been issued at this time. No date for the fight has been set but March appears to be the rumored time frame for the fight as part of either UFC on Versus 3 or UFC 129.
After Schaub’s win over Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 121 in October, the “TUF” finalist said he’d like to face Mir in his next fight, feeling it would be a good test of his abilities.
“If the UFC calls, I’m up for whatever they ask me to do… but I did say I think that next step up from Gonzaga would be a guy like Frank Mir or (Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic). For me, that’s kind of headed in the direction of getting closer to the title. I’m such a fan of Frank Mir and he poses such huge threats to me. I’m trying to get better and the only way to get better is knowing that I have to fight a guy like Frank Mir.”
Schaub has won three in a row since his first professional defeat to fellow “TUF 10″ cast member Roy “Big Country” Nelson in the shows tournament final in December of last year. Besides the win over Gonzaga, Schaub has earned wins over Chris Tuchscherer at UFC 116 and Chase Gormley at UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones.
Mir defeated Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovi? this past September in the main event of UFC 119 by knockout. Both men were highly criticized for their performance and no “Knockout of the Night” bonus was awarded that night even though Mir had the only KO of the evening. Before that Mir lost a one sided affair to Shane Carwin at UFC 111 for the UFC interim heavyweight title, earned a technical submission win over Cheick Kongo at UFC 107, and lost to Brock Lesnar at UFC 100 in a bout to unify the UFC heavyweight title.