Frank Mir has his next bout booked but it won’t take place inside of the Bellator cage.
Over the weekend, it was officially announced that the former UFC heavyweight champion would take on former Bellator and RIZIN fighter Satoshi Ishii in Quintet next month. Ishii recently won by submission against Bjorn Schmiedeberg in an MMA bout.
#QUINTET3 presents another Special Single Match: heavyweights Frank Mir and Satoshi Ishii bring world class #grappling skills to @orleansarena on Oct.5th! https://t.co/HKLjJgLcTu
Show starts at 7pm and live on @UFCFightPass https://t.co/9Wg5bVgskl@SatoshiIshii @thefrankmir pic.twitter.com/KEKZjjRCji
— QUINTET (@quintet_pr) September 21, 2018
The former UFC Heavyweight Champion had a historic tenure while competing in the largest MMA (mixed martial arts) promotion in the world. However, his time has come to an end with the UFC. Mir, who holds a pro-MMA record of 18-12, had been with the organization for 16 years and won the UFC heavyweight championship in 2004. He also won an interim title in 2008.
Mir had a rough stretch as of late in his career as he was just 2-7 in his last nine bouts dating back to 2012 and lasted competed under the UFC banner in March of 2016 when he lost to Mark Hunt. As of a result of a failed drug test for that fight, he was issued a two-year suspension by USADA after testing positive for turinabol.
It was expected at the time of his departure from the UFC that the most likely place that Mir would sign was with Bellator as they are the #2 promotion in the world. That turned out to be true and later made his promotional debut with the Viacom-owned promotion when he lost to Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 198 on Saturday, April 28, 2018 from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois.
This grappling concept is slated to go down in Sin City at The Orleans Arena on Oct. 5. This is the second bout announced for the show that will air on the UFC’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber is slated to take on fellow Hall of Famer and MMA Legend Kazushi Sakuraba in a grappling contest when the two fighters captain two out of four teams in Quintet.
Discussion: What are your thoughts on this match? Sound off in the comment section.
