UFC Fight Night 61: Bigfoot vs. Mir

Antonio Silva (18-6) vs. Frank Mir (16-9)

Frank Mir gets a chance to redeem himself after four consecutive losses when he takes on the 264-pound Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva at UFC Fight Night 61 in Brazil.

Silva has fought four times in the past two years and has not fared well with his last win coming back in February of 2013 when he won by TKO with a series of brutal punches after being dominated in the early parts of the match. Since then he has lost three straight fights with two coming by way of a knockout punch in the first three minutes of the first round. He has done little in those fights to suggest that his 35-year-old body is able to compete at a high level anymore. His opponent, Frank Mir, has had an even tougher time of late and has not won since late 2011 (4 fights). It hasn’t even been close in those matches as he has landed a meager 53 significant strikes during the losing streak while his opponents have laid into him to the tune of 206 significant strikes in the same period of time. Twice he was knocked out in those fights, once by punches and once by a knee, and twice he lost by a unanimous decision where he had no chance. Silva has a worse defense than his opponent and over his career has defended just 52% of strikes aimed at him compared to 37% that Mir deters, but with 13 of his 18 career victories coming from TKO, you know that “Bigfoot” will be going for an early knockout of Mir.

Silva may look to be at a disadvantage when you examine his career stats against his Mir’s, but it is frequently referenced that he has intangible parts of his game that allow him to continue fighting when he is seemingly down. This was evident in his last win, as he took a barrage of punches to the body, but concentrated on Alistair Overeem’s head, landing 85% of his significant strikes there and eventually got in the right series of punches to take down the 6’4” heavyweight. Silva will need to use his 80” reach to keep his distance from Mir in this one as he looks for a TKO in the early parts of the fight. If he is unable to get it early he will need to let Mir tire himself out and go for a combo of punches in one of the later rounds.

Mir has recently expressed his gratitude towards the UFC for letting him even fight in this one after four straight matches where he was absolutely dominated. Mir typically goes for the takedown, averaging 2.23 per fight over his career as he’s parlayed that into a submission win in nine of his 16 victories. Unfortunately, he typically takes a beating, absorbing 4.01 significant strikes per minute and will in all likelihood lose any match that goes the full time limit. In his last bout, he took on the aforementioned Overeem and was also dominated like his opponent, but did not have the power to get a knockout or submission in the loss. He landed just three significant strikes out of 23 hits (13%) as he failed to get Overeem’s head once. Mir will likely take some blows in this one but will need to protect his head and look to get a win by submission at some point in the middle rounds. If he doesn’t do that, expect him to be knocked out or lose by unanimous decision.