Frank Mir: ‘The UFC Told Me Lesnar Was Coming Back’

Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir has been busy preparing for his UFC Fight Night 71 main-event bout with Todd Duffee.

Mir, who is coming off a knockout win over “Bigfoot” Silva, recently revealed an interesting story to MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani while in attendance at Sunday’s TUF 21 Finale event.

According to the heavyweight submission specialist, at the beginning of this year UFC officials told him that a win over “Bigfoot” Silva would earn him a trilogy bout with arch nemesis Brock Lesnar, his words:

“It definitely was the one I wanted, the first time I found out that he was calling me out and stuff,” Mir explained. “There was the talk, I mean… UFC powers that be, they told… I was under the impression that Brock was getting ready to sign, and that if that happens, I’d be the guy, as long as I did what I had to do with Bigfoot (Antonio Silva), that that could be a good fight to build up, you know: ‘He’s had a layoff, you’re coming off the win, let’s make this trilogy.’ I was hearing rumors of Madison Square Garden. So it caught me by surprise when they told me: ‘Oh, he’s just announced his retirement’. I was like: ‘Well, that’s kind of crazy, because there was some pretty high level people that I was speaking to, that told me that it was all but a done deal, that that was a signed contract.”

In the end, Brock Lesnar decided to sign a new deal with the WWE, which ultimately led to his retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts. Mir had this to say about Lesnar’s decision:

“Maybe financially, he was the guy that goes to two different car dealerships?” assumes Mir. “I think, maybe he just took advantage of the instant attention that he got by bringing up the UFC’s name, and so probably got a bigger contract with the professional wrestling organization. And that being said, maybe watching the Bigfoot fight, maybe that wasn’t the best for him to come off a layoff.”

Would you have been excited to see a trilogy bout between rivals Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir?

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