Frank Mir not ready to give up championship dream

Despite losing two straight fights inside the Octagon, former two-time UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir (16-7 MMA, 14-7 UFC) isn’t ready to throw in the towel on his championship dream.

Mir’s most recent octagon effort resulted in a unanimous decision loss to Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner Daniel Cormier at April’s UFC on FOX: Melendez vs. Henderson event. Prior to the Cormier bout, Mir was TKO’d in his bid to recapture the UFC heavyweight title by then champion Junior dos Santos at UFC 146.

Those set backs marked the first back-to-back losses in Frank Mir’s 13-year MMA career.

Most 34-year-old mixed martial arts veterans would likely try to take a different path for the remainder of their combat sports careers, like filling up space on an event in order to obtain a paycheck. Not Mir, who declared during the UFC 164 media conference call that he still has championship dreams:

In his words:

“I don’t concede the fact of just trying to put on great fights. Obviously, the outcome of my drive is to actually work back towards the title. I don’t see it as a situation where that’s no longer within my grasp. The training I’m doing now, where I’m at in life, being only 34 years of age, I don’t really see it as an issue to concede to the fact that ‘Oh I’m only going to fight to be an entertaining fight just added onto a card.’ That’s just not where I’m at in my life.”

Mir will look to get back into the heavyweight title picture August 31 when he takes on Josh Barnett (32-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC) in the co-main event of UFC 164 in Milwaukee.

Do you think Mir still has a title-run left in him? Let’s hear it Penn Nation!