Frank Mir moves on from MMA
Just a day after UFC signed Michael Chandler from Bellator, the organization officially lost another fighter. Heavyweight Frank Mir has reportedly signed with Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.
He's the third big-name fighter David Feldman has signed recently, behind Paige VanZant and Thiago Alves. BKFC has also lost two fighters as recently in the form of Bec Rawlings and Artem Lobov.
The former UFC Heavyweight champion, Frank Mir still had one fight left on his Bellator contract. But due to the wording in that contract, he became a free agent on April 19th, 2020. This was because the organization was not able to give him the number of fights specified in his deal.
FightBananas was the first to break the news that Frank Mir was moving on from MMA. It's not known if still free agent Brock Lesnar would be headed to Bellator to possibly avenge his UFC 100 loss to Mir. That plan has now gone away.
Frank Mir, towards the end of his Bellator run, also made multiple appearances behind the microphone at the desk with Jay Glazer. His last fight in their cage came back at Bellator 231 where he beat Roy Nelson for the second time (the first being at UFC 130). That unanimous decision win ended a four-fight losing streak, which he had twice in his MMA career.
There are now 24 contracted Bellator Heavyweights. There was talk early after Bellator signed John Barnett, that Scott Coker was interested in also running back the UFC 164 fight where The Warmaster knocked out Frank Mir in the first round.
At the age of 41, the likelihood he'd return to MMA is small, so his career probably ends at 19-13. At that time, he finished his opponents 14 times. When people think of Frank Mir, they immediately think of the power he possesses in both hands. But he was pretty good on the mat as well, racking up 9 submissions.
BKFC's next card is on October 10th at Tony's Pizza Events Center in Salina Kansas. With the ink hardly dry on the deal, there's no word yet when he'll make his debut let alone who it'll be against.