The UFC Fight Night event scheduled for Feb. 22 in Brazil will be headlined by a heavyweight clash between Antonio ‘Bigfoot” Silva and Frank Mir. Both are long time veterans of the UFC and both men are going into this fight trying to stop slides in their career. Though there is a lack of depth in the UFC’s heavyweight division, both men may be looking at their last UFC appearance with a loss.
Mir has lost four fights in a row at this point. His last win was in December of 2011 and even in that fight with Antonio Noguiera, he looked like he was slowing down a lot. They have been putting in Mir with front line fighters such as Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett and Alistair Overeem and though he is a different fighter, Silva is right along with those guys in terms of level.
Bigfoot has not won a fight since he came from behind to bum rush Alistair Overeem back in May of 2013. In his last outing, he was knocked out by Andrei Arlovski. Overall he is (2-4-1) in his last seven fights. Two of those losses are to champion Cain Velasquez, and he has also fought top guys such as Cormier, Mark Hunt and Travis Browne.
So the question here really becomes, which fighter has slowed down the most? Both are very easy to hit, and it has shown in their fights for years. Mir can be a smart fighter, and he is very dangerous on the ground with submissions (see video), whereas Silva is pretty much a brawler who looks to club you standing or on the ground. Silva is still a big guy who cuts down to the 265 lb limit and will probably be at least 275 come fight time, while Mir will be best served by coming in at around 250 lbs. Look for Silva to come out and be active early in the fight, trying to take Mir out. Mir can take a lot of punishment, but he is going to need to catch Silva coming in when Bigfoot gets aggressive. Many think Mir may no longer be able to get off on offense, which means he has to drag the fight out.
There was a time when Mir was one of the top MMA artists in the Heavyweight division. This video is a few years old, but check out Mir at his best.
