Tag: Frank Mir

MMA Top 10 Heavyweights: Junior Dos Santos Moves to the Top

Filed under: UFC, Rankings, HeavyweightsJunior Dos Santos has had a rather amazing UFC career. Signed to make his debut against Fabricio Werdum at UFC 90, Dos Santos was such a big underdog that some people suggested he was only brought to the UFC beca…

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Junior dos Santos celebrates after his win at UFC on FOX.Junior Dos Santos has had a rather amazing UFC career. Signed to make his debut against Fabricio Werdum at UFC 90, Dos Santos was such a big underdog that some people suggested he was only brought to the UFC because it would give Werdum an easy win on his way to a heavyweight title shot. Instead, Dos Santos knocked Werdum out in the first round, beginning a UFC run that would lead to him taking the heavyweight belt from Cain Velasquez on Saturday night.

There’s nothing the least bit fancy about what Dos Santos does: He just hits the other guy really, really hard. Dos Santos is 8-0 in the UFC, and he finished six of his opponents with punches, while winning the other two fights by lopsided unanimous decision, battering those two opponents with punches for 15 minutes each. And yet even though everyone who steps into the Octagon with Dos Santos knows what’s coming, no one can do anything about it.

Dos Santos has never had an easy opponent: Between Werdum and Velasquez his victims were Stefan Struve, Mirko Cro Cop, Gilbert Yvel, Gabriel Gonzaga, Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin. And yet Dos Santos always makes it look easy.

So there’s little doubt that Dos Santos is at the top of our heavyweight rankings. For the rest of the rankings, see below.

Top 10 heavyweights in mixed martial arts
(Editor’s note: The individual fighter’s ranking the last time we did heavyweights are in parentheses.)

1. Junior Dos Santos (2): The biggest question for the UFC’s bottom line is how many of the new viewers who tuned in to see the fight on Saturday night are now Dos Santos fans who will pay to watch him again. Dos Santos isn’t a proven pay-per-view draw yet, but he’s an appealing and likable fighter who has just reached by far his biggest audience yet.

2. Cain Velasquez (1): I firmly believe that Velasquez will be back. Velasquez has too much talent and too much work ethic not to be fighting for the heavyweight title again some day in the future.

3. Alistair Overeem (3): I think Overeem would represent the most interesting possible opponent for Dos Santos. Overeem is the one fighter in the heavyweight division who might actually be a better striker than Dos Santos, and if Overeem can beat Brock Lesnar on December 30, then some time in 2012 we’ll see Overeem and Dos Santos go at it.

4. Brock Lesnar (4): Lesnar was articulate and engaging in his commentary role on the UFC on Fox broadcast, and seeing him again was a reminder of just how important a star he’s become to the UFC. His fight with Overeem will likely be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view draw of 2011, and if he wins that fight his bout with Dos Santos would likely be the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view draw of 2012.

5. Fabricio Werdum (5): In the last four years Werdum’s only losses have been to Dos Santos and Overeem, while he’s had impressive victories over Gabriel Gonzaga, Brandon Vera, Mike Kyle, Antonio Silva and Fedor Emelianenko. Werdum fights high-level opponents and usually comes out on top, and I’m excited about the prospects of seeing him back in the UFC soon.

6. Daniel Cormier (6): The 9-0 Cormier has hardly even been tested so far in his MMA career, including a dominant first-round knockout victory over Antonio Silva in September. He’s set to face Josh Barnett in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix final, and if he wins that fight, the logical next step would be a shot at the UFC heavyweight title.

7. Shane Carwin (7): Carwin has lost back-to-back fights to Lesnar and Dos Santos, and his bad back is expected to keep him out for several more months, so he may drop in the heavyweight rankings soon.

8. Frank Mir (8): Mir has won two in a row since being knocked out by Carwin a year and a half ago, and in December he’ll try to make it three straight wins with a rematch against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. If Mir wins that one, he’d make a lot of sense as the next opponent for Velasquez.

9. Josh Barnett (9): Although UFC President Dana White has badmouthed Barnett many times, there’s little doubt that he’ll be welcomed back to the UFC if he beats Cormier to win the Strikeforce tournament.

10. Antonio Silva (10): Bigfoot’s future is a bit murky because the future is murky for everyone who’s still on the Strikeforce side of the Zuffa roster. But in the UFC there are a lot of very interesting fights for Silva. A UFC debut against the loser over the Overeem-Lesnar bout would be a huge heavyweight fight to make in 2012.

 

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UFC on FOX: 5 Fighters Who Could Join Jon Anik in the Broadcast Booth

The UFC announced last week that long-time host of ESPN’s MMA Live show, Jon Anik will be the new commentator for a second team to cover the hectic schedule of UFC events in the future. With the UFC event schedule being more hectic as it has ever …

The UFC announced last week that long-time host of ESPN’s MMA Live show, Jon Anik will be the new commentator for a second team to cover the hectic schedule of UFC events in the future. With the UFC event schedule being more hectic as it has ever been, the new team will complement the current team of Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan.

Anik will need a partner in crime and speculation is rampant over who that person will be. Anik did say that UFC officials have told him that his partner will be a past or present fighter.

Here are five fighters, current or former, that could join Anik in the booth.

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Frank Mir Explains Why He Thinks Brock Lesnar Will Beat Alistair Overeem

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Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir took part in a question-and-answer session prior to the UFC 137 weigh-ins last week. Among the topics Mir discussed were why he feels fighting injured robs the fans and the opponent and why he thinks Brock Lesnar will beat Alistair Overeem at UFC 141.

 

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Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir took part in a question-and-answer session prior to the UFC 137 weigh-ins last week. Among the topics Mir discussed were why he feels fighting injured robs the fans and the opponent and why he thinks Brock Lesnar will beat Alistair Overeem at UFC 141.

 

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Your Daily Dose of Awesome: FoGriff and Friends Get Mauled at the K-9 Trials

(Free shirt goes to whoever can pick out Dan Hardy.) 

This past weekend, the 21st annual K-9 Trials went down. What are the K-9 Trials you ask? Well, they are like the Westminster Dog Show, only points are awarded on each dog’s ability to tear you limb from limb. This year, UFC fighters Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Dan Hardy, and Frank Mir got in on the action, because when presented the opportunity to be mauled by a dog, who wouldn’t jump?


(Free shirt goes to whoever can pick out Dan Hardy.) 

This past weekend, the 21st annual K-9 Trials went down. What are the K-9 Trials you ask? Well, they are like the Westminster Dog Show, only points are awarded on each dog’s ability to tear you limb from limb. This year, UFC fighters Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Dan Hardy, and Frank Mir got in on the action, because when presented the opportunity to be mauled by a dog, who wouldn’t jump?

The highlight of the show without a doubt was Stephan Bonnar, who decided to goad the mongrel with the old “You’ll never take me alive!” routine. Leave it to this man to find it necessary to upstage a dog. Will someone get “The American Psycho” a role on CSI or whatever they’re casting UFC fighters for these days? I have a feeling that Frank Mir, on the other hand, secretly wants to end the dog’s life for attempting to make him look foolish. Or, at the least, make him eat some vomit.

-Danga 

Roy Nelson Keeping His Cool Ahead of Crucial UFC 137 Bout

Filed under: UFCAsk Roy Nelson how he’s been preparing for his fight against Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at UFC 137, and you’ll find that “Big Country’s” sense of humor is still very much intact after two straight losses.

“I’ve just been working out in …

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Roy NelsonAsk Roy Nelson how he’s been preparing for his fight against Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at UFC 137, and you’ll find that “Big Country’s” sense of humor is still very much intact after two straight losses.

“I’ve just been working out in the cemetery a lot,” he told MMA Fighting recently. “I’ve got to get ready for the left kick. I want to see what it’s like.”

It’s a typical Roy Nelson answer, which is to say slightly absurd and said with a straight face, as if to daring you to say, ‘No, seriously.’ But these aren’t joking times for Nelson. After coming up short against Junior dos Santos and then Frank Mir, Nelson is facing a potentially dire situation.

Don’t tell him that, of course.

“All fights are dire,” Nelson said. “I’ve seen guys get cut after one. I’ve seen guys lose three or four and still have a job. In this business, there’s no rhyme or reason. It’s MMA. It’s like when you go into the Octagon: anything can happen.”

If Nelson didn’t already know that, he got a quick education in his fight against Mir. He knew he was getting sick before the bout, he said. He’d been shaking hands at a recent UFC Fan Expo and “I must have touched some dirty people and didn’t wash my hands enough.”

Even when he realized he was coming down with something, he refused to take antibiotics because he worried about the effect they might have on his cardio, Nelson said. Then again, not taking them didn’t do much to help him either.

“In that fight, I just hit a wall. And I hit a wall fast. I hit the wall, like, the first minute. I think it kind of showed on my face in the fight. But I pushed through it, gave a hundred percent of what I had, and just came out on the losing end.”

The Tuesday after the fight, Nelson would stagger into the emergency room and find out that he had walking pneumonia. Even with a course of antibiotics, he’d spend the next month or so trying to kick the illness. He’d also end up questioning whether taking a fight against a former UFC heavyweight champion in this state was really the best career move.

“The one thing that I definitely learned from this one is, I’m always a fighter first and a businessman second, and that one taught me to be a businessman before a fighter. When you’re injured or sick, the thing is, you’ve still got to provide for your family. I hadn’t fought for ten months before that, and I’m just trying to put food on the table and take care of my bills. It was one of those things, plus it was an awesome opportunity. You beat Frank and you’re right back in the mix.”

Since Nelson couldn’t beat ’em, however, he decided to join ’em. He’s been working out with his old foe Mir in preparation for the bout with Filipovic. He and Mir don’t talk about their fight, Nelson said, because “it’s in the past.”

Nelson’s future lies in the cage with Cro Cop. If he doesn’t come out on the winning end of that one, it will bring his losing streak to three, which is often the magic number that brings the ax down on a fighter’s UFC contract. Since Cro Cop has also lost two straight — and since he’s in the last fight of his current deal — the loser in this fight could very well end up out of a job.

“It’s so cliche, you know. You have to beat a legend to be a legend. But I think just to fight Cro Cop, period, is something that, as a fighter, you just want to do,” Nelson said. “You want to be able to say, hey, I competed with some of the best of the world.”

You want to be able to say it eventually, when you’re looking back at a long successful career. But if Nelson doesn’t find a way to beat Filipovic, he’s in danger of reaching that point sooner than he wants to.

Maybe “anything can happen” in the Octagon, but one thing that can’t happen is coming out on the losing end and remaining employed indefinitely. You can bet that a businessman-fighter like Nelson knows that as well as anyone. Now he just has to fight accordingly.

 

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Frank Mir Feels Brock Lesnar Will “Easily” Beat Alistair Overeem at UFC 141

Frank Mir once said that he wanted Brock Lesnar “to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries.”  Despite that fact, he is still picking the former UFC heavyweight champion to defeat Alistair Overeem in his Octagon debut…

Frank Mir once said that he wanted Brock Lesnar “to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries.” 

Despite that fact, he is still picking the former UFC heavyweight champion to defeat Alistair Overeem in his Octagon debut.

While speaking to ESPN.com, Mir surprisingly endorsed his rival pretty decisively when speaking about the headlining fight at UFC 141. 

“Honestly, I think Brock will win pretty easily,” Mir indicated.  He explained that Lesnar’s wrestling pedigree will simply be too much for “The Demolition Man” to overcome.

“I think we’re going to see the closest thing to a grappler versus striker match you’ll see nowadays. Brock is going to cover up; maybe throw one jab. He’ll rush Overeem to the cage, reach down for a leg and rip him down.”

Despite a pretty solid grappling resume winning 19 of his 35 fights by way of submission, Mir more or less said the most recent Strikeforce heavyweight champion will be helpless once he gets taken down. 

“I don’t think he’s going to get off his back,” Mir said. “I’d be very shocked—I’d applaud Overeem if he got off his back.” 

Mir also said that he no longer has any problems with Lesnar, mentioning that their real life vendetta was not as big of a deal as they made it out to be.

“Time heals all wounds,” Mir reflected. “And in reality, I played that up because at that time in my life I thought being loud and saying those things would be good marketing for a third fight.”

“In the last couple years I’ve realized, if people are going to dislike me, I want it to be because of my personality and not because of something I did for marketing a fight.”

Mir handed Lesnar his first professional loss when he submitted him with a kneebar back at UFC 81.  However, Brock got his revenge at UFC 100 when he finished Mir with some vicious ground and pound in the second round.

Mir is riding a two-fight win streak after being knocked out by Shane Carwin at UFC 111 and is set to have a part two with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 140.  Mir won their first meeting by TKO at UFC 92.

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