Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir is no longer restricted by his Bellator MMA contract.
The 40-year-old still had one more fight left under his Bellator MMA deal; however, due to the coronavirus epidemic, the contract expired on April 1. Since joining Bellator MMA back in 2017, Mir hasn’t had the best luck inside the octagon as the fighter has only one victory.
Mir’s debut saw him take a loss to Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 198 and then the former UFC Heavyweight Champion suffered another defeat to Javy Ayala at Bellator 212. Mir got a unanimous decision win over Roy Nelson at Bellator 231.
While the MMA veteran is certainly open to honor his last fight with Bellator MMA, the Las Vegas native revealed on “Phone Booth Fight” podcast that he’s going to explore the free market:
“Basically I had a good conversation with Scott Coker,” he said. “(I’m) still going to have a fight with them, just because there’s a fight left on my fight contract. Scott was very easy to talk to about it – their company’s shut down, he hasn’t even left his house in three weeks – so, once they start up, there’s going to be a backlog of fights because they have so many fighters on their roster.
“So now I’m basically, not basically, I am a free agent. Even though I would still do fights for Bellator, I’m not beholden to any contract to anybody now. So I can try out the free market and see whoever opens up to fighting first.”
It appears that Mir has his eyes set on the Japanese MMA promotion RIZIN, both as a fighter and a color commentator:
“It has always been a dream of mine to fight in Japan,” he admitted. “I remember watching the old PRIDEs back in the day, and RIZIN looks like they have a card coming up in August. So now I’m opened up to where now I can actually start talking to other companies and seeing where to go, which is great for commentary stuff, as I know before being exclusive fight-wise with Bellator I think hurt me as far as maybe commentating for the UFC. So maybe it’ll open up that avenue to where I could start commentary for UFC fights again and other organizations.”
Check out the full interview where Mir talks about where else he would love to fight, his potential heavyweight opponents down the line, and so much more!