Actually, it was made at UFC 100 by Brock Lesnar, but Cheick Kongo's skill-set didn't have the proper attributes to be effective at UFC 107.
I don't know who coined the term Frank Mir 2.0, but I like it and we'll use that to identify just what that means. Essentially, it's just Frank Mir has gotten a lot bigger in the past year and has new some found power in his hands for the most part. The size was as a result of getting destroyed by Brock Lesnar at UFC 100. Mir felt that he needed to bulk up so that he could compete with the behemoth's of the UFC heavyweight division in Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, and Junior Dos Santos.
It's weird that Mir has put on all this size and extra muscle, only to have the same thing happen at UFC 111 that happened at UFC 100.
The only difference was that Carwin did it standing up while pinning Mir against the cage and not on the ground as Lesnar did. The scary part about it is that Mir had NO answer for it. I know Carwin's a big boy, but it's almost like Mir made no effort to move from against the cage. He just allowed Carwin to land those meat hooks for fists into his forehead which opened up a cut early in the fight.
Frank Mir can either submit you on the ground or knock you out with his hands.
Carwin did something very smart in that he negated Mir's striking advantage while closing the distance and clinching with him. Not only did that take away Mir's ability to strike, but it allowed Carwin to get close enough to drop those hammers on Mir without risking anything in return. As we all know, it doesn't take many shots from a legitimate heavyweight to put anyone away and we got to witness that first hand this past weekend. So this strategy takes away Mir's ability to use one of his weapons, (which is his boxing that may be over-hyped). Carwin's hands are so low and he leaves that chin out there asking to be hit, so that why I thought Mir had the advantage there.
Now, if we go back to UFC 100 we'll see that Lesnar took away Mir's ability to use his submissions while they were on the ground. Lesnar essentially stayed chest to chest on Mir, which didn't allow Mir any space to move his hips to obtain full guard where he could mount any type of offense on the ground. It's very simply strategy, but when you walk around at close to 300lbs it's very effective.
So in a nutshell, all you have to do is basically 'crowd' Mir on the feet or on the ground and you can defeat one of the best heavyweights out there? That's what it looks like, and it'll be interesting to see who they'll match Mir with next. Personally, I'd love for them to do Junior Dos Santos vs. Frank Mir next. JDS has a different skill-set, but he's a big heavyweight that could possibly dominant Frank Mir in the clinch as he did against Mirko Cro Cop.
It appears the cast has been made, will Frank Mir make the necessary adjustments? It doesn't appear to me that adding size was the answer in his case. What say you?
SBN coverage of UFC 111: St-Pierre vs. Hardy
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