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By Allison Duck 
Sunday, July 12, 2009 | 7:08 a.m.
“This is just one of those things where it shows you that winning is not the only thing that creates a champion.”
Jennifer Mir’s words about her husband’s UFC 100 loss to Brock Lesnar explain the dichotomy of a fighter: It is equal parts victories and how a fighter conducts himself.
While he didn’t put in his best fighting performance, Frank Mir showed why he is regarded as a class act in the professional fighting world.
Mir’s wife sat by her husband at the ESPN Zone in New York-New York as he spent hours signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans at a private meet-and-greet session after the fight. “I haven’t seen the fight,” she said. “I was upstairs in the hotel room with the kids. I rode with them in the ambulance and the kids met us there. You know, they just wanted to see that he was OK. And he’s fine. They did a CAT scan; they did an X-ray and everything was fine. So that’s the most important thing.”
Though she did not watch Brock Lesnar’s after-fight antics — he flipped the bird to the crowd and slobbered for the cameras while dissing the event’s sponsor — she said, “Oh I heard what happened. I am totally proud (of my husband).” She has reason to be. Her husband wasn’t the one screaming, “I love it! Keep booing! Keep booing!”
She has a simple message for Mir’s opponent — “That’s why, Brock, that’s why everyone was rooting for my husband still while they were putting the belt on you.”
Despite her husband’s lackluster performance, Jennifer Mir knows, “He’s a true champion and everybody sees that. In the sport, there’s kind of like a brotherhood that goes on amongst all the fighters because there’s that respect they have for each other and the training that goes into each fight. Even the guys who have had the biggest feuds; afterwards, they still always respect each other.”
Frank Mir said that, “after I broke Tim Silva’s arm, we were having drinks at the House of Blues. That’s just the way it is. We’re all trained martial artists, but we’re all brothers.”
His wife says having the fight behind them “is like instant relief.” She is not worried for the future because, “I know he’s going to be OK; I know he’s always going to conduct himself properly. He’s still really young and he’s got a lot of years still left of this. This is just the business, another day at the office. It didn’t really go that well for us tonight, but you always take the good and the bad things out of fights and tonight, thanks to Brock, there were a lot of good things actually for us. Frank came in shape and he trained really well and he showed that he had heart. It’s just back to the drawing board.”
Mir was lucky when Brock left his leg exposed for the tap out last time, nothing short of a miracle could save him this time. Brock is too strong, too big, and too quick to lose to the likes of Frank again.
I've followed Brock from his days as the Minnesota Gopher College wrestling phenom, but lost interest when he joined the flying circus fake pro wrestling. Now he is back to his strength, proving to be the baddest man on the planet.
Interesting how the local paper speaks of how Mir is a class act, when his performance in the octagon was largely amateurish. I guess they had to say something nice about him.
Unfortunately, Dana White cannot be pleased that his crucial marketing moment of maximum exposure was marred by a lack of sportsmanship by Brock Lesnar and an unfortunate referee error during the Dan Henderson fight.
This was to be a coming out of sorts for the UFC..In essence, to capture the "mainstream" fan. Yet even by pre-1999 UFC standards this was a brutal and raw night. Lesnar's antics, and to a lesser extent Mark Coleman's behavior at press row, harkened back to the Tank Abbot days. And Henderson's late and scarily brutal punch to an unconscious Michael Bisping was an embarassment - not as much to Henderson (who was following through as most fighters would) as to a slow-reacting referee. ZUFFA must be thanking God for George St.Pierre. He, predictably, allowed for the good sportsmanship that White has been promoting so ubiquitously.
Obviously, damage control was in order and Lesnar's post-fight apology was an attempt to mitigate the potential alienation of the first time viewer. Only time will tell if a significant segment of the sports watching audience had been lost..
Yes, Mir is a class act. As everyone knows, adversity reveals character. Everyone associated
with Mr. Mir should be proud of him. He is a credit to the UFC profession, and I would be honored to meet him someday. Another "class act" is Randy Couture. He was an assistant wrestling coach at Oregon State when I was the Head Strength Coach there. In 25+ years as a collegiate strength coach, no one was tougher, or worked harder than Randy. These 2 men are true champions as both athletes, and as people. They are role models to me, and many others.
UFC needs as many as they can find like these guys.
Rob Oviatt
Pullman, WA
Brock could have sent Mir into outer space if he wanted too.