Ex-UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir knows his career is coming near its end but it appears he still has at least two fights left in him.
The 44-year-old veteran, who last competed in MMA back in 2019 when he secured a unanimous decision win over Roy Nelson under the Bellator banner, is currently aligned with United Fight League (UFL), an upstart regional promotion with its third card scheduled on Aug. 12. While he’s busy working behind the scenes as an ambassador for UFL, Mir is also quietly plotting his comeback to MMA with aspirations for a return in late 2023 or early 2024.
“Obviously, I’m in the twilight of my career,” Mir told MMA Fighting. “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. I have other responsibilities that I have to address but training once a day is still good and then I go lift weights to keep myself healthy and sane. Because mentally I wouldn’t be able to cope with life if I didn’t have training and martial arts as an outlet. It’s my religion.
“So I want to do possibly two more fights and I want to do it for the UFL, to fight for us.”
According to Mir, the ideal scenario allows him to book a fight to knock off the ring rust and then he would return for one final appearance where he wants to share a card with his daughter, Bella Mir.
Bella, who is currently wrestling at the University of Iowa while securing a name, image and likeness rights sponsorship with the UFC, has already put together a perfect 3-0 record to start her MMA career. Mir couldn’t imagine a much better way to say goodbye to the sport than fighting on the same night as his daughter while handing over the family legacy to her.
“I haven’t fought MMA since 2019 when I fought Roy [Nelson] last,” Mir said. “I want to fight one just to get back into it before I do a last fight with Bella. Hopefully I can fight sometime from December to February time period is what I’m looking for to come back as far as a first fight to knock the rust off me and then hopefully this summer come out sharp and fight on the same card as Bella.
“That can be my swan song going out and Bella’s taking the torch from here on out. The last you’ll see me and then everybody can see her.”
At just 20 years old, Bella Mir has already become one of the top prospects to watch for the future in MMA, which her father admits was an adjustment he had to make after originally hoping his children wouldn’t follow him into fighting.
“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,” Mir explained. “I wanted them to go to work, be an engineer, what not, and then when they get off work if they want to train and sharpen their mind and body, good!
“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.”
Mir has learned to embrace his daughter’s choice to become a fighter, which is why it would mean so much to him to share a card with her for his final fight. He’s even got a family photo in mind after both of them compete on the same night.
“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,” Mir said. “Just knowing that’s very much who we are and that’s representing who we are and what we are. I can’t think of a better photo to represent my last fight.”
As far as passing to torch to his daughter afterwards, Mir has no doubts that Bella is going to have a very successful career, especially given the meticulous way she’s approached the fight game thus far.
She’s been training her whole life but now Bella has turned her full focus on wrestling where she’s already started racking up titles and a run at the Olympics isn’t totally out of the question either. The eventual goal will be championships in MMA and Mir expects Bella to bring home plenty of gold.
“She’s going to be a force to be reckoned with,” Mir said. “She’s going to be a UFC champion.”
