Frank Mir Out of UFC 98 Bout with Brock Lesnar Due to Injury?

(This story was updated at 12:30 am.)

Less than 36 hours away from a major PPV event, a small earthquake was felt through the mixed martial arts world as reports ran wild that Frank Mir would have to pull out of his Heavyweight title unification bout with Brock Lesnar at UFC 98 due to a knee injury. But according UFC President Dana White, that might not be the case.

Earlier today, MMA Mania and other outlets reported the news that Mir suffered the injury while in training and had to have arthriscopic surgery performed on his right knee earlier this week that would put him out of his May 23rd rematch against Lesnar.

But in talking to Yahoo's Kevin Iole earlier, White said he hadn't heard anything about Mir's knee and that the fight was still on.

“I don’t know anything about it, so I honestly couldn’t tell you anything about it. I’m not too worried about it now. If that were the situation, I’d know about it. I honestly don’t know right now. I haven’t talked to Frank and I haven’t talked to Lesnar and if that’s the situation, I’m not going to make any statements until I talk to everybody.”

There has been no public comment from Mir or his management.

So what if Mir is out? The rematch sounds like a good bet for July's UFC 100 unless the fed decides to put Lesnar in UFC 98 as planned with someone else and do the Mir rematch later in '09. As it stands, the only fight currently on the card that could be main event status is the long-awaited Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra grudge match—speculated to be Hughes' final fight.

There has also been some rumors that Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves could be moved up to UFC 98 if Lesnar/Mir is off.

It's interesting that Mir's surgery took place earlier this week, meaning people have known about this for a while and were able to keep it hush-hush. That is pretty incredible considering the amount of media and insiders now in the business.

More on this story as we hear it, but I would expect a lot of discussion before, during and after Saturday's UFC 96 event.

(Thanks to reader/MMA writer Brian Oswald for the tip.)

Josh Nason—josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com]—has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. If you are using any content or recapping from this site, please include a link to www.ropesringandcage.com. Thank you for your support!