Death Clutch - Brock Lesnar [59]
And that’s when Yamasaki stopped the fight, and declared Couture unable to intelligently defend himself from my attack. The Legend had been defeated. I was the UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World!
Beating Randy Couture for the title was a great moment for me, but in the back of my head, all I could think of was getting my hands on Frank Mir again. As much as winning the title was the greatest professional moment I had experienced, losing that first UFC fight to Frank was still bothering me.
Meanwhile, the UFC was still going to crown an “Interim” Heavyweight Champion, and that guy was going to face me for the undisputed title. I have to hand it to Dana White and UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, because they really knew what they were doing. The interim title fight was going to be between Antônio “Minotauro” Nogueira and . . . you guessed it . . . my old pal Frank Mir.
I really wanted to fight Big Nog, because he looked like the kind of fighter I would enjoy getting into the Octagon against. He’s just an old-school fighter who enjoyed the battleground, the same type of warrior mind-set possessed by Randy Couture. But as much as I wanted to test my skills against Big Nog, I wanted to beat the shit out of Frank Mir even more. I needed to redeem myself against Frank. That loss to him was painful to me.
When Big Nog and Frank squared off, I was right in the front row, and I was cheering for Frank all the way.
From the first moment of the fight, I could tell Nogueira was sick. He should have been in bed, not in the Octagon. I’m not talking about the guy having a cold or the sniffles or something, he was really ill.
What none of us knew at the time is that Nog had just battled a staph infection. When he got into the Octagon against Frank, he wasn’t 100 percent. He wasn’t even 50 percent. His reflexes weren’t there, his reaction time was slowed, and he made Frank look like Muhammad Ali.
Frank Mir, the man who was born with a golden horseshoe up his ass, was once again handed a victory. He stood in the Octagon against someone who was much more of a man, much more of a fighter, than he could ever hope to be, and he got an easy knockout because his opponent had no business competing that night. Frankie Boy was crowned the UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion, and he should have retired on the spot, because his next step was to go up against me.
The UFC put the camera on me at ringside to get my reaction. I just smiled, and told the crowd that Frank had just given me an early Christmas present.
I don’t know if Frank really, truly believed in his heart that he was going to be able to handle me the second time around, but I knew for an absolute certainty that I was going to beat him and get my redemption . . . and become the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World.
My fight with Frank was scheduled for a few months down the road, but he had to postpone it due to a training injury. That turned out to be another lucky break for Frank, because he got to fight me for the undisputed title in the main event of the biggest mixed martial arts show of all time, UFC 100.
ROAD TO REDEMPTION
UFC 100 was scheduled for July 11, 2009, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, and my fight with Frank Mir for the undisputed title was the main event. I kept dreaming about what was going to happen in that fight, and I knew I was going to pull that golden horseshoe right out of Frank’s ass and beat him over the head with it.
Frank went around bragging about how he had beaten me, which was one thing. But now he was walking around like it was a foregone conclusion that he was going to beat me again, and that he was already a champion. He’s walking around with a fake title belt, and he thinks it carries the same meaning as the real title? Frank was lucky to get a fight with Big Nog for the fake title when Nog was sick as hell.
Frank was talking about how my punches felt like the ones his little