Lesnar’s Illness Forced Mir into Depression
Even after watching recordings of it, Mir still doesn’t understand what prompted Lesnar to get in his face following that…
Even after watching recordings of it, Mir still doesn’t understand what prompted Lesnar to get in his face following that championship fight.
Mir temporarily blacked out after taking some hard shots from Lesnar that forced referee Herb Dean to stop the fight in the second round.
When he came to, he was already standing and was surprised to see Lesnar pointing in his direction and yelling.
I remember I panicked when he stuck me against the cage and then I remember staring at Herb, Mir said. I even made a joke like, ‘I didn’t get out, did I?’ When I saw Brock screaming and yelling at me I was confused because I was thinking, ‘What happened from the time I blacked out and the time I woke up?’
Although Frank Sr. said he can’t say specifically why, he believes that Lesnar’s disrespect has sparked a change in his son ever since.
He shouldn’t have lost that fight, in his heart and in his mind, Frank Sr. said. Brock’s demeanor after that fight really fueled him. After a fight it should be, ‘You won. Let’s shake hands.’ That fuels him now.
Brock is going to be ever present in his mind until he gets back in and deals with him.
Those closest to Mir will tell you there are two huge factors that have made him into the UFC fighter he is today.
The first is his raw, athletic ability. The second is his fierce hatred of losing.
According to Russ Leet, his high school wrestling coach at Bonanza, Mir refused to lose to the same opponent twice, even during his junior year in which he dropped his first seven matches.
And Frank Sr. says that Mir’s distaste for losing was evident to his father much earlier than that.
He hated to lose with a passion, whether it was a checker game, marbles or connect the dots, Frank Sr. said. Something as ridiculous as checkers, if he didn’t win, he’d walk away. He could not conceive he didn’t win.
Being a young guy we’d all tell him, ‘Come on, man. It’s a checkers game, give me a break.’ He’d just walk away in anger because he couldn’t believe he lost.
In October, news broke that Lesnar had pulled out of a scheduled fight with Shane Carwin at UFC 106 because of an illness so severe that his career was potentially over.
Mir was so distraught at the thought of never fighting Lesnar again that he became physically ill.
When he got sick it screwed up my training because he was such a driving force for me, Mir said. I went into a depression for two to three days where I didn’t go to the gym, I got sick — I drove myself insane thinking we may possibly not fight again.
I couldn’t live with that.
After the initial shock wore off, however, Mir has been able to return to preparations for his upcoming fight with Cheick Kongo in Memphis at UFC 107.
He says he will still be bothered if Lesnar’s health prevents a third meeting between them, but he’s learned to accept it for now and focus on the tasks at hand.
One of those includes giving kids attending Las Vegas high schools like he once did something to cheer for and look up to.
“Growing up in Vegas there is that complaint that we have no sports team,” Mir said. “We have boxing, but no boxers are ever from Vegas, they’re always from the east. We never had anything we could join up to. A couple years ago I learned that kids recognized that I was a (Las Vegas) fighter and they were cheering for me. I took it seriously after that.”
