UFC Fight Night 61 Preview: Can Frank Mir and Bigfoot Silva Still Surprise Us?
Frank Mir and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva have been talking a lot about the ground game.
Leading up to their UFC Fight Night 61 main event, each declining heavyweight has independently agreed that his opponent won’t submit him. The end result is that we could have a good, old-fashioned jiu-jitsu challenge match on our hands come Sunday in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
“I'm very much of a scientist,” Mir said to Heidi Fang on The Fight Corner Radio recently. “If I was to put money on it, I wouldn't bet a dollar that he could submit me.”
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Silva has said almost the exact same thing except, naturally, in reverse.
"I've fought a lot of great jiu-jitsu names, I fought Fabricio Werdum, and I've never been submitted,” he told Fox Sports’ Damon Martin. “So if I have to fight five rounds on the ground, I'll fight five rounds on the ground."
Trash talk aside, if the majority—or even any, really—of the action goes down to the mat, it will be a surprise. Despite the fact both Mir and Silva are decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts, of late they have preferred to stand and slug it out more often than not.
Then again, perhaps the best we can hope for in a meeting like this one is that somebody does something surprising. Mir and Silva each used to be capable of shocking things, and perhaps the fighting optimist in all of us wants to believe they can still amaze.
Mir was once among the most athletic and skilled UFC big men. When he won, shock and awe were his calling cards. He snapped Tim Sylvia’s arm like an old piece of driftwood to win the heavyweight belt at UFC 48, and there’s no telling how his story might have gone had a motorcycle wreck not almost ended his career.
Even still, he battled back to defeat a debuting Brock Lesnar at UFC 81, knock out the fading Mirko Cro Cop at UFC 119 and twist up Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira so badly as recently as 2011, that the Brazilian legend required surgery and 16 screws to put him back together.
Yet Mir has had the toughest of tough goes lately, going 0-4 (including two TKOs) in a stretch that began with his loss to Junior dos Santos in a championship bout at UFC 146. If he can take any solace in that losing streak, it’s that it has come against some of the best the weight class has to offer—Dos Santos, Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett and Alistair Overeem.
At this point, though, it’s tough to imagine the 14-year UFC veteran’s career surviving a fifth straight loss. Almost 36 years old, it would be difficult for Mir to plot a course out of a hole that terribly deep.
Silva needs this almost as badly.
He was once also capable of stunning things. A huge but plodding man, it’s always been easy to underestimate him, even after he won the EliteXC heavyweight title and spent extended stretches on most heavyweight Top Five lists.
But then Silva beat the legendary Fedor Emelianenko near the end of Strikeforce’s run in 2011, knocked out an undefeated Travis Browne inside the Octagon and yanked the rug out from under the streaking Overeem at UFC 156.
Now 35, however, he has experienced more downs than ups recently. Silva is just 2-4-1 in his last seven, though—like Mir—losses to Cormier and Cain Velasquez (twice) are nothing to sneeze at. The only real stingers in that stretch are an upset defeat by Andrei Arlovski and a no-contest against Mark Hunt, after Silva tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.
It was the second positive PED test of his career. Silva reportedly had a testosterone exemption for the bout and blamed a physician for bungling his treatments.
Mir, too, was outed as a TRT patient before the Nevada State Athletic Commission and UFC banned the controversial treatment in February 2014. This week he told MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn that his hormone therapy was “patchwork” and “putting a Band-Aid on the problem” for him.
Improper training and exercise were the real culprits of a recent physical decline, Mir said. He made major changes to his training camp, took some time off and now assures us via Fox Sports 1’s UFC Tonight he’ll be at his “full capability” this weekend.
Whether that capability includes the complete complement of his fearsome Brazilian jiu-jitsu game remains to be seen. Mir has scored just two submission victories in his last 11 fights, dating back to late 2008.
Silva has been even less inclined, scoring just one win via sub during his 15 most recent bouts, a stretch that encompasses his entire runs through the UFC and Strikeforce.
So for all the fighters' talk about their respective grappling skills this week, fans are largely anticipating a sloppy slugfest between two former champions in the twilight of once great careers.
That’ll be fine. It’ll be a Sunday night on FS1, after all.
Still, the romantics in our crowd—the old-schoolers, the grappling fans—can still hope for a surprise.
Chad Dundas covers MMA for Bleacher Report.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
