VIDEO | Frank Mir won’t let USADA ban end career, wants to fight in Japan

Earlier this month, news broke that former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir had been slapped with a two-year ban from the United States Anti-Doping Agency. His suspension stems from an in-competition test, conducted after his knockout loss to Mark Hunt. Mir tested positive for metabolites of the banned substance dehydrochloromethyltestosterone.

Initially, it was Mir’s plan to combat this ban, and try to identify a tainted substance that he had inadvertently consumed. When he learned that it’s possible he could have ingested this mystery substance years ago, however, he realized identifying it could be near impossible.

Mir explained the situation in an interview with TMZ. See the video of his interview above, and a transcription below:

“I’ve been trying to fight it just to find out what happened and what was going on, but now to appeal it, because of the latest test and [USADA] saying they’re going to go back for years, where do I begin? I’ve already spent a lot of money just on an eight-week period of my life. Now they’re telling me it could be two or three years of my life [ago that I consumed] something that could have been tainted? How do you begin? I don’t even know. I want to find out the truth but now I’m looking at what seems like a pretty insurmountable hill.”

The 37-year-old former champ then explained that he doesn’t want to let this end his career.

“I’ll keep looking for ways to fight,” he said. “I’ll figure it out.”

“That’s most likely what’ll end up happening,” he said, when ask if he’d consider fighting outside USADA’s jurisdiction. “I haven’t really talked to anyone about it. I’ve always wanted to fight in Japan. That’s always been a goal of mine.”

Do you think Frank Mir might end up in the Rizin Fighting Federation ring?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/26/2017.