Frank Mir had a legendary UFC career and while daughter Bella would love to follow in his footsteps, she’s also hoping to avoid some of the same pitfalls.
Bella Mir attempted to move one step closer to a UFC contract in her recent Dana White’s Contender Series appearance, but she was on the wrong end of a massive upset as she lost a decision to Alex Apodaca. Still just 23 years old, Mir is already over her first MMA loss, which was suffered in her fifth pro fight—just like her father.
The similarities between the two were brought to Mir’s attention by a social media post that pointed out how both Bella and Frank won their first fight by decision, their next three by first-round submission, and then lost their fifth. While Mir aims to win a UFC title someday like Frank, she’s not planning to take the same kind of damage he endured over an 18-year career.
“I didn’t know that until I watched someone on a video post on Instagram and they were talking about [our similarities] and I was like, that is so weird,” Mir told The Ariel Helwani Show. “I hope that we don’t have the exact career all the way through because I want to fight for a long time and not have so much brain damage.”
When Frank dethroned Tim Sylvia to become UFC heavyweight champion, he was 25 years old, two years older than Mir is now. Frank’s momentum was stalled by a motorcycle injury that forced him to relinquish his title, but he eventually battled back to capture an interim title in 2008 and competed for the undisputed title two more times.
He retired in 2019 with a 19-13 record, with 10 of those 13 losses coming by way of knockout. Mir has seen firsthand how those defeats have taken their toll on Frank.
“He’s been in so many wars before, his brain is not good today,” Mir said. “I feel like it’s really been catching up to him and I’d like to try to get fast finishes and not have wars like that, like I just did in that last fight. Obviously, if I have to I will. … I don’t know if I want to have 32 fights.”
“He’s doing good, but he’s had so many surgeries,” she added. “His body is so beat up. He’s had his neck fused, he’s had his lower back fused, he’s had his hip replacement, his knee replacement. Both his labrums in his shoulders are completely gone, that’s why I said I did not want to have his career. I want to be able to not have that many surgeries and function afterwards completely normal. There’s times where he’s, like, needing a cane because he can’t walk that much, so it’s just his body’s beat up.”
A collegiate wrestling standout—Mir won an NCAA Division-I title for North Central College this past March—Mir is optimistic she can take care of her body even as she continues to pursue her dream of competing at the Olympics and becoming a UFC star.
Mir will be tied inextricably to Frank throughout her combat sports journey, but it was her mother Jennifer who made headlines following Mir’s Contender Series loss. Jennifer went on a rampage on social media, criticizing Apodaca, later deleting her comments and issuing an apology. Mir is used to facing extra scrutiny due to her family name and joked that her mother actually drew some of the attention away from her for once.
“Honestly, the hate after the fight, it didn’t surprise me at all, and then my mom commenting about stuff, that didn’t really help the situation,” Mir said. “But she honestly kind of took the fire off of me. Everyone started hating on her more than they were hating on me, so it’s crazy, it’s like, ‘Mom, you literally protect me in every situation I’ve ever lived in. Literally, you protected me more in this one.’ I don’t know how you could have done that, but she did.
“I think it just took the best of her, and then drinking that night, that didn’t really help. So I don’t think she had any kind of mission, she was just raging out. She obviously apologized to everyone. She admitted that she made a mistake and that’s the best that anyone can do is owning up to it, so that was just a crazy situation.”
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