Off Guard: Frank Mir wants to retire in UFC after avenging loss to 'glass cannon' Fedor Emelianenko

LAS VEGAS – Frank Mir is 40 years old, but he’s not done with fighting just yet. Indeed, he says he has plans for his next fight and for the final chapter of his career.

Mir (19-13 MMA, 1-2 BMMA) is back in training after undergoing stem cell treatment in Medellin, Colombia, in December and is working to bring himself back into fight shape ahead of a return.

Speaking to MMA Junkie, the former UFC heavyweight champion revealed that the clock is ticking down on his Bellator contract, and he’d like to get one more fight in before he considers his next move.

“I’ve been talking to (Bellator executive Mike) Kogan and trying to figure out a date,” he explained. “Contractually, I’m up by April 1, but I don’t know if they’ll get it in by then, so I’ll just work something to try to extend it somehow.”

But that doesn’t mean that Mir intends on staying a Bellator fighter through the summer and beyond. He revealed that he’s ready to field all offers ahead of what is likely to be the final big fight contract of his career.

“I think Bellator’s a great company and stuff, but I’d like to fight more often,” he admitted. “Honestly, too, just because my daughter’s getting into everything now and doing MMA, when this contract’s up I’ll look at my options.”

Mir’s name value as a former UFC heavyweight champion should guarantee some interesting offers when the time comes, but he said that he’d love nothing better than to finish his career with the organization that saw his best years as a fighter now that the anti-doping program managed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is more understanding of the metabolite issue that he says forced him out of the UFC.

“The PFL’s definitely something that’s super interesting, but in all reality too, before it’s all said and done, I’m gonna retire with the UFC,” Mir said. “Especially with USADA being more realistic with the metabolite issue. What they did with Jon (Jones) really made it to where now I can go back, because that was my whole complaint before. Just how Jon didn’t know how he kept testing positive for metabolites, when they were testing (me) I didn’t know how I was going to test. If you don’t know how you did it, how am I going to avoid it happening next time? And, since I’m not Jon Jones, I could suffer a four-year suspension for an additional positive test. That was my main reason for leaving the UFC to begin with. So now that’s fixed, and USADA aren’t such Nazis, and they realize that obviously there’s more to it than is on the surface, I can go back.”

But before Mir can mull over his potential options, he still has the chance to squeeze one more fight in before his Bellator deal expires. One man who he’d love to face again is one of the last men to defeat him, Fedor Emelianenko.

“The Last Emperor” (39-6 MMA, 3-2 BMMA) beat Mir by first-round knockout at Bellator 198 in April 2018, but Mir said that result was a fluke and stated that Emelianenko knows it, too.

“I would definitely love a rematch with Fedor,” he said. “I think he realizes the last fight was a fluke in his favor. He gets touched, he falls down, and I hit harder than Bader, so if I touch him … and then I got over-zealous in my first fight back after two years, (and) he caught me. You know, hey, he’s an explosive fighter, but he’s a glass cannon. He can’t take a shot. So I would just play it safe, not expose myself and just keep throwing jabs, and if one lands, he’s going to go to sleep. So that’s definitely a fight I would like to get back. I would love to be afforded the opportunity to show that what I’m saying is correct.”