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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Frank Mir is set to face off against Brock Lesnar in a Heavyweight Title unification bout at UFC 98 this May. According to multiple reports today, however, that fight could be in jeopardy. In separate reports this afternoon, FiveOuncesOfPain.com and MMAWeekly.com reported that word was coming from Mir's camp that an injury was forcing him out of the bout.
Originally reported to be a possible back injury, MMAWeekly.com stated that it was an issue with the knee, and in fact Mir has recently undergone surgery on the knee which will keep him out of action for 4-6 weeks. With the fight seemingly off due to the injury, Kevin Iole at Yahoo! Sports spoke with Dana White at today's weigh-ins for Saturday's UFC 96 event, and Dana had something entirely different to say on the injury. "I don’t know anything about it, so I honestly couldn’t tell you anything about it...I’m not too worried about it now. If that were the situation, I’d know about it. I honestly don’t know right now."
With that said, it's too early to tell whether or not the bout will go on as planned, if it will be postponed or if another opponent will be found for Lesnar.
Penick's Analysis: It's hard to tell exactly where we're at on this at the moment. Frank Mir has been quoted as recently as December talking about faking injuries or leaking info about injuries to the point where you never know if it's a legit injury or not. However, this time he's actually undergone arthroscopic surgery to "clean up" a knee that was swelling in training. I would hate for this bout to be called off immediately after being announced, and if Dana knew nothing about it there's a possibility it's being overblown by certain people throwing it out there. You can't put it past Mir to try to play headgames with Lesnar heading into this bout, but it remains to be seen if that's what's going on here. Either way, I hope the fight is able to go on as planned or at the very least that it's able to take place at UFC 100 or something like that. I'd hate for them to need to find a replacement for Mir against Lesnar as that just wouldn't sit right.
[Mir Photo (c) Spike TV]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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