As an ATG HW does he crack the top ten? Probably the best submission expert the division has ever seen, but he has been ko'd a few times. That being said he was quite dominant up until the motorbike injury so it's hard to say how much that took from him. What are people's thoughts on this former champion?
At first glance you'd think his resume was pretty good looking at the names on it... But most of the best names on it were well past their best when he beat them. He peaked as a HW force around the time he beat Sylvia, after his comeback he's mostly been a gatekeeper/outside of the top 5 contender kind of guy. Gets a lot of points for longevity but he's probably well outside of the top 5 as far as ATG heavies go.
How do you see him going against the following: Dan Severn Don Frye Mark Coleman Mark Kerr Randy Couture Igor Vovanchyn
This is a hard one. Some of those guys were a product of their time and it's hard to say what they'd have done in the 2000s. I think a PRIME Kerr without drug addiction pounds Mirs head into the canvas. Kerr was everything Brock was but with better submission skills. Prime Coleman gives Mir a serious run for his money as well, really hard one to pick. A true 50/50 where I lean only slightly towards Mir. Just can't shake the image of a bloodied Mir catching Coleman in some crazy sub. Same with Couture as well. Vovchanchyn might be able to mirror what Freeman did. But would be at a massive size disadvantage and could be in real trouble if Mir was able to survive the early storm and get the fight to the ground. With Severn we probably never saw his best considering he was already in his mid-late 30s when the UFC got going. It's hard to see him beating a much younger Mir, but he might be able to capitalize on Mir's greenness and questionable heart in a 5 round fight - same with Frye provided he survived long enough. Lean towards Mir in those ones. More so with with Frye. But like any of these other fights there's no definite wins for Mir here..... Does that put Mir's standing in perspective? He's a really dangerous guy, and he's probably capable of upsetting some greats at their best. But on most nights loses.
I haven't studied him yet, I'm meeting him this week though so was just curious. Severn probably ended his prime with the Coleman loss I'd say. Frye obviously had a huge period of absence that ended his prime as well. It's hard gauging those two fighters for me. But it's clear to me that Coleman was superior to both in every aspect. He just had bad issues with his stamina and fight contracts. I can picture Mir beating Severn and Frye comfortably the way Gracie did, get to the ground and then attack a submission. I think he'll beat Coleman in the late rounds when he's shattered. Kerr, Couture and Vovanchyn are harder for me to pick. Kerr looked to have it all but that KO loss to Vovanchyn completely affected his mentality and he was never the same again. I do think BJJ has a natural advantage over Wrestling though because of the submission expertise, but Kerr himself became quite a decent submission fighter himself so it's a tough call. Vovanchyn would probably KO him over 2 fights, on a one off fight I still give him the edge because he was always there to be caught. Couture was quite hard to match stylistically and I honestly don't have a clue how this one goes, but Couture was so capable of pulling it out if the bag I give him a slight edge. So I say I pick him over Frye, Severn and Coleman. But he loses to Kerr, Vovanchyn and Couture.
Nearly every time Mir fought an elite fighter close to their prime he got his ass kicked. His career has the feel good story of him coming back from the terrible motorcycle accident but he just was never really that good to begin with. I think a focused Kerr before the drugs would've smashed him similar to how Brock did in his rematch with Mir. Igor would brutally KO him, Couture would beat him too. The others are a tossup.
I guess you can put him in the top 10 on the ATG HW List, probably at number 10. My ATG top 10 Fedor Nogueira Couture cro cop Smith Coleman Barnett Sylvia Arlovkski Mir
As far as the HW top 10 is concerned... 1. Fedor 2. Nogueira 3. Junior Dos Santos 4. Cain 5. Cro Cop 6. Werdum I think those are the clear top 6 based on the mixture of their resume and peak performance/skills in their prime. You can switch some places if you want but I can't see anyone from the outside cracking the top 6. I think JDS' legacy is very underrated just because he lost to Cain twice who is his absolutely worst styllistic match up and is a proven ATG as well even if he fought rarely. Despite this he has a KO victory over him as well. His other loss is to another ATG Overeem when he was already faded and Reem had the momentum. His run from 2008 to 2012 when he went 8-0 against Werdum, Struve, Cro Cop, Yvel, Gonzaga, Roy Nelson, Shane Carwin, Cain and Frank Mir is second only to Fedor's 10 years undefeated run. Even a shot version of JDS beat Stipe Miočić who has looked unbeatable since and was on a 3 fight win streak coming into the fight. Beat Rothwell in 2016 who was on a 4 win streak and close to the title shot. Other than those 6 the places from 7 to 10 are quite open and there's a wide variety of fighters you can add: Arlovski, Sylvia, Couture, Mir and Brock Lesnar if you take the UFC route Barnett, Mark Kerr, Coleman and Vovchanchyn if you take the PRIDE/old school route Then there's Overeem and Kharitonov who have a solid collection of wins but a lot of losses as well. Cormier who had a solid undefeated run at HW and looked unbeatable but didn't stick around. And we also have Stipe Miočić who has a solid resume already with wins over Shane del Rosario (underrated win), Gonzaga, Maldonado, Hunt, Arlovski (on a 6 win streak), Werdum (at his peak when he was the champ and the fight was in Brazil) and Overeem (on a 4 win streak and looked unbeatable before and after the fight with Stipe). So this is already a marquee resume even if he doesn't do anything else from now on. Keep in mind that you can only pick 4 of the bolded names, would you really choose Mir as one of them? Personally I wouldn't.
I think Mir's problem was that he was always few years behind the development of MMA. He was training to be a BJJ expert at the time when wrestling became the most important thing in MMA. He then had the accident which set him even further back. He later embraced becoming a technical wrestle-boxer but put too much stress on the technique when everyone else was into meathead strength and conditioning (remember his interviews before the Brock fight at UFC 100). His prime was already over at that point and when he had that final resurrection USADA came to town and busted him. I think he always neglected his diet as well.
I do think BJJ has a natural advantage over Wrestling because of the submission expertise, matching up a BJJ fighter against a Wrestler is almost certainly gonna lead to a dull affair with the Wrestler dominating position as the BJJ waits for a submission opening. I do wonder if Mir never had the bike injury of his career would have been any different.
You stole my post ^ It seems to me that weight-for-weight a BJJ guy has an advantage on the ground over a pure wrestler. However, wrestlers are crazy strong and especially at HW, have a lot of lbs on a BJJ guy. If the wrestler knows how to maintain position, the jiujitsu man has serious problems at improving position and at submitting. Add a bit of gnp expertise and an elite wrestler is a nightmare.
Yeah I do think BJJ guys are better on their back but wrestlers seem to be better at controlling from above. They all have extremely strong legs and are able to pin men down without too much effort. If they are able to GNP it is a nightmare but it does free the arms up a bit to be captured, however the problem then is the BJJ man will be exhausted from trying to adapt position. The Mir V Lesnar fights show this quite well. The first fight Lesnar was a bit too reckless didn't wear Mir down and he took the leg easily. The second fight Lesnar just out grappled him with his strength and Mir didn't have the reserves to hold off his attack in the end.
Interesting is guys like Cain and Dos Santos are black belt BJJ but never actively sought out submission based gameplans. Mir fought like a BJJ guy but the above 2 didn't, despite being, in theory, as talented as Mir was or atleast on that sort of level but had totally different strategies when it came to fighting. It amazes me how MMA goes through cycles of BJJ, wrestling and stand up.
