Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir has been absent from the Octagon for over a year now. After having a 2-fight win streak snapped by Andrei Arlovski at UFC 191, Mir looked to bounce back as he faced Mark Hunt at ‘UFC Fight Night: Australia’. Unfortunately for Mir, the fight was rather one-sided as Hunt picked up a first round walkoff KO win over the former champ.
Following the loss, Mir was notified of a potential USADA anti-doping violation stemming from his fight night drug test. After a lengthy appeal process, Mir was handed a 2 year suspension retroactive to April of 2016, making him eligible to fight in just eight months from now. Subsequently, the UFC released the former champ from his contract, making him a free agent.
Now however, the former champ is in negotiation with both Bellator MMA and Chechnya’s Absolute Championship Berkut (ACB) with who he currently does commentary duty for.
Frank Mir spoke to MMAFighting to give an update on his current situation, as well as his desire for a comeback fight, explaining that he could potentially fight overseas during his suspension, but that it’s “kind of a gray area”:
“I probably could,” Mir said. “But i don’t know what that would do as far as me coming back to fight in the states. It’s kind of a gray area. I don’t know what the UFC would do about me breaking the agreement.”
In regards to a potential opponent for his comeback, Mir stated:
“I think that would be a phenomenal fight to have on my name as far as somebody that I faced throughout my career,”
“Fedor is kind of hard to nail down to one company. So I don’t want to get in a situation where I’ve been the last 16 years where I’m like, ‘Hey, I’d like to make this fight work, but I fight for the UFC and he won’t fight for the UFC,’ so that sucks. It was never gonna happen. So I kind of want to avoid that pitfall in the future.
“Not only am I selling myself as a fighter, but I’m also selling potential opponents in the future. Like, ‘Hey if you sign me, this is a potential fight you could make.’”
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 8/1/2017.