Ex-UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir plans to end his career with two final fights in the United Fight League (UFL), hoping to share the last one with his daughter Bella Mir, whom he believes has a promising future in MMA.
Ex-UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir is aware his career is drawing to a close, however he looks like he still has energy for at least two more matches. Now aged 44, his last MMA competition was in 2019, when he secured a victory over Roy Nelson under the Bellator banner. Nowadays, Mir is associated with the United Fight League (UFL), an emerging regional promotion with its third card scheduled for Aug. 12. Mir is not just enthusiastically fulfilling his role as the UFL ambassador, but he is also secretly outlining his comeback to MMA, with plans to make a return at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
Mir recognizes he is approaching the end of his career, saying “Obviously, I’m in the twilight of my career. Now I’m starting to shift over in how I train and how I move. I realized training three times a day is over for me. So I want to do possibly two more fights and I want to do it for the UFL, to fight for us.” He sees the ideal situation as allowing him to book a fight to knock off the ring rust and then make one final appearance, in which he would like to share a card with his daughter, Bella Mir.
Bella, a current University of Iowa wrestling student, has already started her MMA career with an impressive 3-0 record. She has earned a name, image, and likeness rights sponsorship with the UFC. Mir sees no better way to say farewell to the sport than to fight on the same night as his daughter and hand over the family legacy to her. “I haven’t fought MMA since 2019 when I fought Roy [Nelson] last, I want to fight one just to get back into it before I do a last fight with Bella,” Mir said.
Mir admits that accepting his daughter’s decision to follow in his footsteps was not easy, but he has now fully embraced it. He expresses this, saying, “…Martial arts is a way of life for our family so obviously I always want my children to train but as far as being professionals, I wasn’t a big fan. But obviously she has her heart set on fighting and following in my footsteps so I was like OK, let’s get some more wrestling, use that as a base. She took that to the extreme.” In regards to the possible sharing of a card with Bella, Mir said, “That final picture to be taken being in the ring and she’s there too and both our hands are still wrapped, the gloves are ripped off, still with the blood and the sweat.”