Video interview: Frank Mir talks Overeem, Fedor, Dana and more [Archive]

Fyodor

22-04-2011, 14:27

Hier de tekstversie. Dat scheelt een hoop tijd. De comments over Overeem staan onderaan.

"At first, when I first heard the term (legend) brought up, I was taken back by it just because I think a lot of people, they conjure up ideas of you know ... close to retirement, if you're not already retired, to have that term, legend, stamped on your career. My wife actually kind of helped straighten me out because I got upset one time at a dinner party type scenario. We're all hanging out, having drinks and someone mentioned the whole legend thing. 'Oh, you're like a legend.' I kind of set the person straight and afterwards she let me know, she goes, 'actually what I think it means, it's a compliment, saying you've been around for 10 years consistently in UFC, you've won titles, you've been there, you have a who's who on your, you know, notches on your belt over Brock (Lesnar), (Antonio Rodrigo) Nogueira, Mirko (Cro Cop), Tim Sylvia (http://www.sbnation.com/mma/fighter/130175/tim-sylvia); I don't think it's meant as a bad thing.' I guess I take it in stride since I still look at all the things I'm going to do in my career. I kind of consider myself almost like in the middle of my career, not even close towards the end.

"I think it was right after I won the belt over Tim Sylvia. I was able to purchase my first home. That was actually a moment of accomplishment because of all the sacrifices that go into fighting. Sacrificing myself and the things I want to do, that's easy because I get to reap the rewards of having your hand raised at the end of the night. It's the people around you who love you that when they sacrifice, at the end of the night, they're still sitting in the crowd watching you get your hand raised and they're like, 'hey, that's my man' or 'that's my dad' or whatever. So, to be able to give back to my family, at that point when it became lucratively a positive thing to become a professional mixed martial artist or fighter in the UFC, that's when I was like, 'okay, now this is cool.' I don't feel like I'm taking away from my family to follow some dream that's actually like, you know, 'we could have had this but dad was always chasing around this fighting thing and that's why we had to go to this school or we couldn't do this or vacation sucked.' And then by that time, when I could get to that status to give back to my family, that's when I finally felt like this is a good thing for everybody.

"I did become a dark, negative person (after my motorcycle crash). It was a very hard issue and a hard time in my life. I wish I could say that everything was due to the fact of my own intelligence or my own fortitude to get through it, but it wasn't. There was a lot of family involved and friends and my wife is a big propent of enabling me to be where I'm at now. A lot of it sometimes just comes to luck. I know people hate to hear that but sometimes things are just out of your control and just work in your benefit, sometimes they work against your benefit. I tell people that's fighting, too. You walk in the cage, you can train every day for three months, do everything right -- eat right, weight's on point, every day in training your trainers couldn't be happier -- you walk in there, you step wrong in the cage, you slip just a little bit on one of the promos, guy happened to throw a punch at the right time and puts your lights out. And he took the fight on two weeks notice and was out of shape. But that's just how it works, you know? That's life itself and I think me being a martial artist helped me realize, you deal with what you can deal with and just don't worry about things you can't.

"I think more or less what really screwed me in making the comments that I made (about wanting to kill Brock Lesnar (http://www.sbnation.com/mma/fighter/122494/brock-lesnar)), they weren't right. As far as, it could be taken the wrong way and I understand that, as an athlete and as a representative of the UFC and of MMA, I have to watch what I say because people are listening to it and if it's taken the wrong way by a youth, that's a negative thing, that's bad. Too many people put too many positive things behind the sport for me to sit there and to say something out of context that could hamstring it. I think that if it had just been that I think it would have been okay. It's just that after were facts that, honestly, when I think people read that, not that I wasn't remorseful but I was frustrated with the fact that people didn't get it. And I think people felt that that showed that I wasn't remorseful about what I said and I think it was just a miscommunication. What I said was awful as far as if it was taken that way. But I think, more or less, people felt, well, you should feel sorry for him. It's not that I don't feel bad about what I said; I'm just upset that you guys are dealing with it the way you're dealing with it. Like, I don't get this, I don't understand. I laughed after I said it, it was a joke, I didn't mean it to be this way, I apologize, I didn't realize it was going to be looked at this way and I'm sorry.

"I think Dana (White) is a good business man and your relationship (with him) is as good as however your last fight goes, really. So as long as I go out there and I beat somebody, Dana likes me. If I go out there and it's a shitty fight, it doesn't matter how much you like me the five minutes before the fight, I'm not going to be on his Christmas list.
"I really didn't like the idea (of fighting Roy Nelson (http://www.sbnation.com/mma/fighter/123062/roy-nelson)) at first just because Roy's coming off his loss with dos Santos and obviously, with the way our sport works, I want to fight a fight where I have a lot to gain but I don't think a win between the two of us is going to catapult either guy towards a title shot or moving into that number one spot. So I was looking more for a fight with (Shane) Carwin. Carwin's coming off his only loss for the title and he's coming back so, I think as fighters, we're always trying to fight guys that are ahead of us and so we're pushing. I think me and Roy are pretty much on the same level right now. I don't think it's doing either one of us anything to have a victory (over the other).

"I think Roy Nelson's most dangerous as you move back. I think he's very good at moving forward, just with his posturing itself and how he puts pressure just moving forward, he makes you use energy. So one thing I'm going to do is just move forward too and just kind of crash into him. I'm the bigger, stronger guy. I'm faster, so I'm not going to move backwards. I think that guys that have moved backwards on Roy and let him eat up ground, they eat that overhand right and straight right hands that he throws. He has an okay left hook, I know he hasn't used it a lot yet in the fights but it's there, I've seen glimpses of it and I think that it's eventually going to shoot up and establish itself. I think he's pretty good against the cage, as far as good cage pressure. He has a low center of gravity ... ha. That was a pretty nice way of putting it.

"I was taken back by (the UFC purchasing Strikeforce (http://www.sbnation.com/mma/promotion/strikeforce)). I was like, wow, this has been in the works for months and I think they kept it under pretty good wraps. I don't think it was out there too much. No longer do we have to hear about, 'well this guy never got to fight this guy, or this guy never got to fight that guy.' With Strikeforce and UFC being under one, you know, Strikeforce being under the UFC banner, now every top 10 heavyweight in the world is all together now. Now there's no reason why we can't fight each other. And, again, what I said earlier about you're only as good as your competition. I never would want to be the king of a small pond, you know as they say the big fish in a small pond, you know? That bugs me. I like the idea of being like, 'that guy is the best and he's fought everybody' and that's just the way I look at it.

"I still think Fedor is a great fighter. All fighters have slumps, all athletes have times in their career where they're not doing as well. Fedor just kind of ran into the problem that I always felt he would have ran into if he fought in a cage, which was that he's not a very big heavyweight. I've always admired him. That's weird that you say you admire somebody and your way of showing it is you want to punch them in the face but that's fighting I guess.

"With all the guys (in the UFC) with the wrestling ability, I don't think (Alistair) Overeem will do as well as a lot of fans would like him to do. I think, obviously, the guy's won at K-1 (http://www.sbnation.com/mma/promotion/k-1). You can't say enough about his stand-up, he's a great fighter. He has a pretty wicked guillotine, at least at light heavyweight he does, I haven't really seen him establish it too much since he's put the weight on. But he has some submissions off his back and move around. But he's been fighting in boxing rings and stuff and now going to fight in the cage, which he's had fights in cages, but you get some of the guys like a Velasquez or a Carwin or Brock and they change levels on you and they push you against the cage and they rip you down. So I think Overeem is going to have to deal with the cage now and when you're a striker, it's an issue."