If former UFC heavyweight champion, Frank Mir, drops his UFC 169 contest to Alistair Overeem this weekend, many will likely call for his retirement.

The former champion has dropped his last three fights and pretty much put all hopes of a title run in the far off distance.

But for Mir, he still wants to fight on.

In a recent interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto Mir Explained why:

“I kind of know no matter what it’s not going to be my last fight. I’m still younger than a lot of the guys in the division.

“There are two ways I would consider retirement. One is losing to guys who are not top-level competition. The other is if I started losing where it’s like, ‘OK man, you were knocked out viciously and staring at the rafters.’ I won’t endanger my health.”

“I’m sorry if those three losses aren’t killing my ego. Let’s see, the losing streak started with Junior dos Santos, the No. 1 heavyweight in the world at the time. Then I lost to Cormier in a pretty boring fight and then to Barnett, which to me was a no-contest because the fight had a very controversial stoppage.

“Look at who I’ve fought. I should retire? Wow. We’d only have five guys in every weight class because everybody else would need to retire.”