4 Reasons why Frank Mir can beat Dos Santos

1. Underrated Striking

Frank Mir’s striking seems to be overshadowed at times by his ground game. Many people focus on his BJJ when describing his skills and forget about his much improved boxing. His ground game is rightly feared but that does not mean his hands and feet should be overlooked. Ever since he knocked out Minotauro Nogueria at UFC 92 Mir himself has spoken proudly of the development of his stand up. This advancement has been rubber stamped by his impressive victories over Mirko Cro Cop and Cheick Kongo.

2. Ground Game

As I said above, Frank Mir’s ground game is notorious and is the one clear area in which he has an advantage over the champion. It is his ground game that makes this an intriguing match up. Dos Santos has yet to face anybody with Mir’s BJJ ability (how could he, Mir is the best in the division) and it would be very interesting to see how Junior would fare if forced into a deadly ground battle with the former champ. He has however fought high level practitioners before such as: Fabricio Werdum, Stefan Struve, Gabriel Gonzaga and Roy Nelson but none of them were ever granted the opportunity to test the Brazilian on the floor, there inlies Mir’s dilemma and the mystery of this fight- will it ever reach the mat?

3. Less Pressure

I don’t know how much of a factor this could potentially be but Frank Mir has considerably less pressure on him to win heading into UFC 146. Mir is highly unfancied for this fight, as he was for the Velasquez fight, despite this he is only one big punch away from becoming an unlikely champion. He has nothing to lose, he’s getting a title show not many imagined he would get, considering how much of an underdog he was going up against Velasquez. Dos Santos on the other hand has went from facing a 50/50 pick’em to being the overwhelming favourite. How will that affect him heading into his first title defence?

4. Well-Rounded

Frank Mir has spoken of having less to worry about in facing Dos Santos as opposed to Velasquez. Unlike Dos Santos, Velasquez has been known to take the fight to the ground and use ground and pound or throw a variety of kicks. Dos Santos so far has been able to get by on his boxing alone. Utilizing a Chuck Liddell-like style of combining great takedown defence with unstoppable knock out punches, Dos Santos has forced opponents to reluctantly play his game to their demise. There are question marks over how he would cope should someone disrupt this game plan. The fact that his one loss came via an armbar submission is curious.

Now I am not for a second going to be outlandish and declare Mir favourite or even deny that he should be underdog. I doubt that we will leave with the belt but I also believe he has more of a chance than people think. I’m not sitting on the fence but this is a much more interesting fight than people are giving it credit for. As Mike Goldberg likes to say ‘Stylistically, it’s a great match up’.