Frank Mir, Fedor Emelianenko take heavyweight division back to the future

SAN DIEGO – Frank Mir was asked his thoughts about a potential matchup with one of the greatest fighters of all-time, Fedor Emelianenko.

"Oh absolutely, I have a lot of respect for Fedor," Mir said. “It would be an honor.”

Before we continue, perhaps we should stop here and clear something up. We did not dig back into the vault for this quote. This was not the Mir of 2004, then the UFC heavyweight champion, talking about a potential unification fight against Emelianenko, at the time the PRIDE heavyweight champion.

No, this is the summer of 2015. And in the back-to-the-future heavyweight picture, the 36-year-old Mir, who everyone thought was washed up a year ago, is being asked about a fighter who has been retired for three years, the 38-year-old Emelianenko, about a potential match.

Not only is this fight feasible, it’s also potentially big. And this doesn’t even take into account that a contemporary of theirs, former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski, also wants a piece of “The Last Emperor.”

So how has this all happened? Well, Mir (18-9) did his part with a ferocious 73-second knockout victory over Todd Duffee on Wednesday night in the main event of UFC Fight Night 71 at the Valley View Casino Center.

That marked Mir’s second first-round knockout victory of 2015, which itself came after a four-fight losing streak that not only had pundits and fans calling for his retirement, but had the question foremost in his own noggin.

"I really was," said Mir, whose losing streak culminated in a one-sided loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 169. "After the Overeem fight, I kept asking myself, why do I keep putting my family through this?”

But time off and a change of approach got Mir back on the right path.

"I don't think anyone will contest that among professional athletes, fighters are in a really selfish position," Mir said. "I don't mean that in a negative way. We have to put ourselves first in our training, and our loved ones really have to do the same. To go through all the hardship and the work we have to go through, the training, the physicality, the emotion, I was lucky, my wife told me to take the time off and recharge. I did, and I was able to keep going."

And with that, the Las Vegas native suddenly finds himself with a variety of interesting and relevant fights to choose from.

A bout with Emelianenko, though, still faces several hurdles. A substantial one is that there’s no guarantee Emelianenko lands in the UFC.

The Russian star’s handlers have always played their cards well in terms of working the free agent market and landing big contracts. It’s no accident Emelianenko has emerged at this juncture in the MMA landscape. UFC's biggest rival promotion, Bellator, has been signing big names from the past for the purpose of putting them in highly publicized legends fights to draw big TV ratings to Spike TV.

The UFC, in response, has hung onto guys with name value on the back side of their career, like Dan Henderson -- fighters who they may have cut in the past -- and made signings, like former pro wrestler CM Punk, they would have skipped. Meanwhile, there are early signs that the long burned-out Japanese MMA market, where Emelianenko once lorded, is coming back to life, and of course, Fedor could also fight in Russia, where president Vladimir Putin is a noted fan.

With so many options to choose from, Emelianenko’s promoter, Vadim Finkelchtein, was predictably coy about where his charge could land.

“I can't tell you exactly right now,” Finkelchtein stated in a press release. “I would like him to make his first fight in Russia, of course, but this is all up to him, after all. ... About a week ago he told me that he might make a comeback. I couldn't believe what I heard. I was happy to hear that, but the real decision he made only a couple of days ago.”

UFC president Dana White, for his part, was noncommittal when asked about Emelianenko on FOX Sports 1 on Wednesday night.

"We'll see what happens," White said. "We'll see how this thing plays out.”

Mir has been through a career of wild ups and downs. He was left on the scrap heap once before, after a motorcycle accident caused him to have to vacate the UFC heavyweight title. By 2009, however, his feud with Brock Lesnar did the biggest business in UFC history, culminating in 1.6 million PPV buys for UFC 100.

And now Mir finds himself riding another wave. Mir owns victories over two of the three biggest heavyweight names of the PRIDE era in Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. So even if this is all at the speculation stage at this point, you can’t blame Mir for daring to dream about the elusive Fedor fight.

"An opportunity to face him would be a huge honor," Mir said. "I might just on the selfish side want him to face somebody first so he could showcase to everybody that he's still a monster and a scary dude and kind of remind fans of who Fedor is, but after that yeah.

"I've faced a lot of the greats from over there in Pride,” Mir continued. “Nogueira being one of them, [Mirko] Cro Cop, another phenomenal fighter who's also making a rejuvenation of his career, so going out there and facing someone like Fedor, absolutely.”

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