The Backup Plan

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Frank Mir knew the drill.

On April 4, the Nevada Athletic Commission revealed former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem had tested positive for elevated testosterone levels during a pre-fight drug screen. Slated to meet Junior dos Santos for the UFC heavyweight crown in one of the year’s most anticipated bouts, the Dutchman’s place as the No. 1 contender was immediately in jeopardy. Mir, who was already booked to face Cain Velasquez, sensed an opportunity was near.

“When I first heard about the outcome [of Overeem’s test], I realized that there was a very strong chance that he would be taken off the card, and I felt that, logically, I’d be one of the first people to jump up,” Mir said during a pre-fight teleconference for UFC 146. “Obviously, I have a lot of momentum going into it, so I was just kind of waiting for the confirmation call.”

He did not wait long. A little more than two weeks after Overeem was flagged, the UFC withdrew him from the event. In his stead stepped Mir, a former champion and the winningest heavyweight in the history of the promotion. He will challenge dos Santos for the title in the UFC 146 main event on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Mir will enter the cage as a significant underdog. Such doubt fuels him.

“Well, I think anytime you go in as the underdog, it gives you motivation because you’re more driven to win when people don’t expect you to,” Mir said. “It also takes a lot of pressure off your shoulders. You know when not a lot is expected of you; you can kind of just relax and concentrate on the task at hand.”

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That he was originally set to tangle with Velasquez could work to his benefit. Because of the American Kickboxing Academy ace’s legendary work rate and seemingly endless gas tank, Mir decided to approach their bout as if it were a 25-minute affair. It made for a seamless transition to dos Santos.

“As far as training, I actually started training for the five-round fight when I first signed to fight Velasquez -- for two reasons,” Mir said. “One, with Velasquez, one of the most dangerous weapons that he has is his motor, his ability to keep on going. I mean, he’s the kind of guy that, seriously, you could be winning the first round or two, and if he’s still in the Octagon with you, then you better be prepared to fight hard. I was already training for that kind of cardio.

“The other reason was knowing Overeem and dos Santos were signed to fight on the same night as I was and that I’d be in [position in] the co-main event if something were to happen to the main event,” he added. “I would either step into that spot to replace an injured fighter or step in if a fighter got scratched. I wanted to get a head start on it.”

Mir and dos Santos are no strangers. At UFC 140 in December, the 32-year-old Las Vegan snapped the arm of the champion’s mentor, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, with a first-round kimura at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. That made Mir, who has finished the beloved Nogueira twice, a public enemy in the eyes of many Brazilians.

“Well, obviously, in the [Nogueira] fight, I got my share of emails that I had to translate with Google Translator, and they weren’t too flattering,” said Mir, whose 14 UFC victories rank first all-time among heavyweights. “I figured it was just a very small group, but it actually wasn’t until the video game situation came up, when I was scheduled to play with Junior on a video game [at] THQ to help promote the release of the ‘UFC [Undisputed] 3’ game [that I found out otherwise].”

The reaction caught Mir off guard.

“The day before, I guess, Junior had received a lot of negative comments and stress from a picture he and I had taken two or three days prior at a fundraiser for children with cancer, and, for whatever reason, that seemed to upset a lot of the fanbase down there and they let him know that,” he said. “So, he offered not to play me in that game because it’s too friendly of a setting for the ire that I brought up, I guess, amongst some of the Brazilian fans.

“That’s when I realized [I needed] to take it a little bit more seriously,” Mir added. “I was, like, ‘Wow, if it really makes it to where he won’t play me in a video game, am I really that disliked, and is it really that much of an issue?’ I thought we were just all fighters and competitors.”

Outside-the-cage shenanigans aside, dos Santos has won nine consecutive fights, seven of them finishes. He has been far from complimentary towards Mir in the weeks leading up to their five-round showdown, going so far as to question his heart during the “UFC Primetime” series. Dos Santos pointed specifically to Mir’s ill-fated encounter with Carwin at UFC 111 two years ago, when he succumbed to punches 3:48 into round one.

“Well, obviously, no one likes to hear anything said about them, but I just broke down why he said what he said when he backed it up on certain fights and I looked at it,” Mir said. “I have no issues with my manhood, so I guess I took it as just him trying to start a fight and trying to stir the pot. Dos Santos, I think, has done better as far as a fighter in the Octagon than he has as far as trying to sell the fight.

“I just don’t give it much thought,” he added. “I’m trying to focus on what I have to do. If my opponent makes a comment and there is some validity behind it, I go back and look at what he said and try to see why he said it. Obviously, I’ll take it into account, but if it’s completely off-the-wall, I’ll kind of just shrug. I’m sure my opponents do the same if I say something that they completely feel is just propaganda. You just kind of roll with it.”