A heavyweight matchup between former champion Frank Mir and The Ultimate Fighter 10 runner-up Brendan Schaub is in the works for an early-2011 UFC event, MMA Weekly reports.
Mir (14-5) scored a third-round knockout of Mirko Cro Cop in September to bounce back from a March loss to contender Shane Carwin, and was rumored for a third meeting with Brock Lesnar before fan reaction prompted Dana White to re-think and abandon to rubber match for now.
Schaub (7-1) has won three-straight since falling to Roy Nelson in the finals of TUF 10 last December, most-recently earning a unanimous decision over Gabriel Gonzaga in October.
The fight is tentatively slated for March, which includes UFC on Versus 2 on March 3, UFC 128 on March 12 and UFC 129 on March 19.
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Pictured: Frank Mir
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Actually this isn’t a half bad fight… Good test for Mir and Schaub needs to be “tested”, I think Mir is a superior fighter and should win this fight…
franky boy has to win this
Mir by armbar
mir by whatever he wants… granted he doesnt get caught, i think mir can win this fight anywhere
Mir he needs to improve his stand-up game for Schaub. Mir is one of; if not, the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practioner in the UFC today. He should work on his Boxing and his Muay Thai to be at his absolute full potential for Schaub. Schaub will definetly have the advantage on the feet, as Mir will have the advantage on the ground, as usual.
Should really be an excellent fight though, regardless.
Schaub stepped up to beat Gonzaga. Now he needs to jump up about 10 steps to beat Mir.
How the not so mighty have fallen. From title challenger to stepping stone for reality show contestants in under 12 months.
Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?
@jppm yea thats kinda an interesting comment because mir is still highly ranked in the HW division. Not taking anything away from Shaub but if you believe that this is a stepping stone.. Unless Mir gets lazy should win this easily. Shaub has hands but I wouldn’t think they are enough to put Mir down AND out.
@dbiz
Yeah, you’ve got a point, I rather enjoyed the SF card last week though
There really isn’t anyone else to fight right now and they’re both coming off of wins, why not this matchup?
Good point Lex.
Interesting match up.
Anyone else think Mir will stand up with him?
Schaub will win either by tko or decision. Schaub easily has better standup than Mir and has shown his good accuaracy. Mir easily better ground game then Schaub but as we’ve seen before its not easy to keep him down. Not to mention Schaub cardio is through the roofs.
Going to be cheering for Schaub in this one.
He’d better be working hard on his takedown defense.
@ jin- ya i belive he will… he beat kongo on the feet with that huge left hook and i think mir wins decisively
I like Schaub but who wouldn’t want to see some old school Mir win via vicious armbar.
Good fight and better tests for both fighters. Schaub might have the better power in the stand up range, but all it takes is one mental slip with Mir and “It’s all over” as goldie’s fake tan a$$ would say.
I could see this as a co-main event for Rua-evans, or maybe even in Australia with Penn-Fitch. After Mir’s last crummy performance, he shouldn’t be honored with another main event for a while. But whatever, should be an exciting fight!
For those of you not feeling this fight, I would direct you to the “Oh Christ, not Mir-Lesnar 3 already!” thread and comments from a couple of weeks ago.
And at some point Joe Silva and Dana White need to know whats the what with Brendan Schaub, so why not let him test himself against a former HW champion?
Schaub is a good athlete and a developing mixed martial artist.
Facing Mir will let Schaub know how far he’s come, and maybe how far he still needs to go before reaching the mountaintop.
Win or lose against Mir Schaub and the rest of us get answers.
And unless Mir suffers a bout of rectal-cranial inversion triggered by excessive ego and overconfidence, I think he’ll stand with Schaub just long enough to get his spacing and timing down before hooking and subbing him…
Surprised that you, jchol, or anyone else hasn’t put the real reasoning for this fight out there. Or does anyone really believe that if Mir hadn’t stood there and exchanged hugs with Cro Cop for 2+ rounds in his last fight that he would still be given this match up?
Sure, if he would’ve been explosive and beat down Crop Cop like he did Nog we would still be seeing him in there against an up n comer eh?
I called for Mir to be knocked down the ladder rung several notches immediately after his non display of fight against Cro Cop and felt that Dana would agree. Glad to see that those kind of displays are dealt with accordingly by UFC brass, stuff like this is uber refreshing to fans like myself.
it helps schaub said he wanted Mir @NaturalDizaster
@naturaldizaster -
Honestly, I considered posting something with depth on this, either here or at the forums, but I didn’t see the need.
Frank Mir has been in the UFC and has been promoted by Dana White for the majority of his career.
That being understood, more than almost anyone else with the exception of Chuck Liddell, Mir should know how the promoting mind of DW works.
Unless Mir came to the cage at 119 deathly ill and didn’t want to back out of the fight at the last minute, then he should have known that in 2010 DW expects to see guys get wrecked in the cage, win, lose, or on super-rare occasions, draw.
And if that had been the case, Mir would have clued us all in after the fact, or at the very least clued DW in to avoid getting both publicly and privately sh!t on by the boss.
Instead what DW and the rest of us got was a Frank Mir who was clearly reluctant to end Mirko CroCop’s UFC career, primarily out of fanboyishness IMO.
What we got was a tough spar, with an almost “accidental” knee for a finish.
Honestly, after 10 minutes I assumed Mir was just going to decision CC and extend a post fight apology for having to beat him.
Mir is well known for his respect and regard for PRIDE and its fighters, especially the HWs.
Respect and regard for an older fighter is all fine and well…UNTIL you sign to fight the guy.
Then you need to kick his a$$ and and grab your cash and text him an apology the following Monday.
Plain and simple, Mir fu<ked up, both professionally and personally. He did himself, his supporters, the paying fanbase, his promoter, and even his opponent a disservice at 119.
Mir has the ground skills to take down and tap out CC at pretty much anytime, and he should have done it.
Or, if ego and bad decision making and all that Mark Dellagrotte noise were the order of the day, Mir should have traded with CC until one of them got clipped and finished.
What we SHOULD NOT have got was 119.
Mir made his choice and now he has to pay for it.
Part of that payment will involve his dropping even further down the HW contention ladder, and part of it will involve having to take sh!t fights.
Make no mistake here.
In the big picture POV, this is a sh!t fight for Mir and an amazing opportunity for Schaub.
If Mir wins he'll probably have to do another sh!t fight, maybe against Jon Madsen or Matt Mitrione before Mir can get back into the mix.
By punishing a fighter with Mir's length of UFC service DW sends the message to ALL his fighter to fight or GTFO of the UFC.
And don't just fight, but fight the way I [meaning Dana White] want you to fight, not how your skillset or training camp dictates.
Yes, its egomania running wild, but its also sound business leadership.
If you as a CEO run a business and you target a contracted troublemaker, you grind that fu<ker down to nothing to send a message to the rest of the tribe to recognize.
In the UFC men like Jon Fitch and now Frank Mir will be the "recognition messengers" for DW.
Seems pretty cut and dried to me, regardless of who asked to fight whom and so forth…
Agree with pretty much everything you put out there, and don’t want to be mistaken as a guy who doesn’t like Mir; because I do. I’m thinking that if he puts Schaub away in brutal fashion or manages the sub, that Dana will pull him back up to top 5 competition. If he for whatever reason drops the ball again, 2011 is going to be a rough year for him.
Honestly I’d like to see him back at peak performance and fight for the belt again. He has the tools to do it, and if he can get his wrestling to the point where he can avoid being manhandled by the Brocks and Carwins of the division, then he damm well could wear gold again imo.
Not to mention Schaub asked for this fight, so now it looks like he gets his chance. I think like most, I expect Mir to get this fight to ground and win by submission, but credit Schaub for asking for this fight and the UFC for making it happen. Schaub has earned this fight, and it’s time to see what he can bring to the HW division.