UFC 169 will be headlined by two title bouts showcasing the lighter weight classes. You’ve heard Joe Rogan say “what a victory for Ricardo Lamas” at least 20 times from the commercial. It should be an excellent pay-per-view, yet there is one fight that fans seem to be talking about more. Obviously Urijah Faber versus Renan Barao will attract plenty of interest, considering how Faber’s performed over the past year. I’m still not sensing much buzz from the featherweight title bout between Jose Aldo and Ricardo Lamas. It was a smart move by the UFC to keep Barao-Faber as the headliner since that is clearly attracting more interest.

The reasoning behind Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir’s losing streak

The fight that continues to get more attention is the heavyweight bout between Frank Mir and Alistair Overeem. Both fighters aren’t in the limelight as much as they used to due to recent losses, but are still polarizing figures. Mir has been a top heavyweight for nearly ten years now. He has broken a few arms in his career and has fought in five title bouts. Then you have Overeem, who some people believed would be the most dominant heavyweight champion of all time before even fighting for the title.

Now both fighters are essentially fighting for their UFC careers. If you watched the UFC 169 extended preview, they talk about their uncertain future right from the beginning. Overeem even went to the extent of saying someone is going to get fired. I’m still not sure why this fight was booked because the heavyweight division lacks depth right now and both fighters still have a strong following. It probably comes down to their respective contracts with both fighters currently not living up to expectations.

I’ll break down why both fighters are on losing streaks and what they need to do to make sure they’ll be fighting again in the UFC. There are all the generalities in the world, you can make for why this fight shouldn’t be happening or why neither fighter should be cut. In the end, that’s how they booked this matchup and their needs to be a winner.

Alistair Overeem

The fall of Overeem was one of the more surprising things to watch in 2013. The way Brock Lesnar dropped, after Overeem landed a body kick will never be forgotten. Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez did beat Lesnar up, but you never saw him overwhelmed from the start. In both those fights, he came in with a tremendous amount of confidence. Overeem made him feel overmatched for the first time in his career. That’s what made practically everyone in awe of him, who never watched him compete in Dream or Strikeforce. He destroyed “Zuffa’s heavyweight goat”.

Obviously the failed drug test in 2012 was a major let down, which led to him having to fight one more time before earning a title shot. When he couldn’t finish Antonio Silva in the first two rounds, people were starting to get a bit concerned. He seemed to rely on his clinching far more than utilizing his kickboxing. He won both rounds, but you can see it took a lot out of him to take Silva down. Eventually he couldn’t overpower Silva anymore, along with being over confident and fatigued. His arrogance made him believe that he can bully Silva around regardless of Silva’s size and strength. He went away from his dynamic striking, which was a poor decision. That led to him being brutally knocked out in what was one of the biggest upsets of 2013.

You can make the excuse that it was his first fight in over a year and that Silva is a legitimate top five heavyweight. There was some obvious rust and he had learned his lesson about not respecting his opponent. His next fight was supposed to be his rebound fight against Travis Browne. Since Browne is 20 pounds lighter than Silva, Overeem was able to overpower him and get him inside the deadly clinch against the cage. That’s where he began to land his patented knees damaging Browne’s stomach. Nobody has more vicious knee strikes than him, yet Browne somehow survived the assault. Once again, he was fatigued and never recovered from using all his energy in trying to finish him off off. That led to him standing right in front of Browne using little movement, which led to him being knocked out by a front kick in dramatic fashion once again.

It’ll be interesting to see how Overeem evolves from a full training camp in Thailand. He has left the Blackzillans, even though he was never a full time member there. His problems are less complicated compared to Mir. Obviously his conditioning needs severe improvement, if he thinks he can beat the top heavyweights in the world. You just saw a few nights ago, how Stipe Miocic picked apart a gassed out Gabriel Gonzaga after the first round.  While Mir doesn’t have incredible conditioning, you know Greg Jackson is going to make it an objective for him to outwork Overeem, so that he’ll eventually wear down. All fighters from Jackson’s camp come in well conditioned, so conditioning should be a huge part of his preparation against Mir.

This is his fight to lose on paper. We’ve seen how Mir struggles defending against the clinch. Overeem’s biggest strength is essentially striking in the clinch, since he’s so powerful and knows how to brutalize his opponents by using his knees. I’d still like to see him use more of his kickboxing rather than looking for the clinch right away. Mir is very intelligent and knows he needs to avoid being against the cage at all costs. If Overeem comes in well conditioned and doesn’t get caught in a Jiu-Jitsu battle with Mir on the ground, he should be able to win. Some will say that his chin is a major liability. While he clearly doesn’t recover well from adversity, both of his recent losses were more because of a lack of endurance rather than his chin. Antonio Silva and Travis Browne are top five heavyweights that can knockout anyone. Overeem has to stay composed and pace himself before going for the kill. You can’t reckless when going up against someone as talented as Mir.

Frank Mir

Whenever I write about Mir, the first thing that always stands out to me is how he refuses to face a non-top ten heavyweight. Whether you adore him or despise him, you have to respect that he always wants to fight the best. His losing streak consists of two former heavyweight champions and an undefeated stud that would be fighting for title, if his training partner weren’t champion. Now he’s facing Overeem, who’s still extremely dangerous and on paper a bad matchup for Mir.

When you look at Mir’s losing streak, the obvious critique is his grappling. It seems odd to criticize that, since he’s one on the true submission specialists in the heavyweight division. What it comes down to is how strong the competition he’s faced. Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier are on another level when it comes to grappling. When he fought Cormer, there was also a major speed difference. That was an advantage Cormier had over most heavyweights and he overwhelmed Mir with his speed.

Then you look at the Barnett fight, where he practically fought where Barnett is most comfortable. They went into the clinch and both of them were trying to dirty box one another. Eventually Barnett overpowered him against the cage and finished him with a knee (terrible stoppage, but it would have been a miracle if Mir survived that round). One thing I noticed about Mir is that he weighed in at 248 pounds, which was seven pounds lighter than Barnett. Why would you weigh that low against a top-level wrestler? Mir isn’t going to beat him by having a slight speed advantage, so it was puzzling to see him down that much. He tried the same thing against Brock Lesnar, where he went down to 245 so he can use his speed to decimate Lesnar with his improved standup. That game plan couldn’t have gone worse for him.

I’m hoping Mir is around the 255-260 pound range for this fight. He weighed in at 258 pounds for his fight against Cormier and he looked good from a conditioning standpoint. He needs to have all the muscle he can get against someone as powerful as Overeem. There have been too many occasions, where he’s been manhandled against the cage and couldn’t get out of that position without taking a significant amount of damage. His last two fights are prime examples of that, along with his loss to Shane Carwin back at UFC 111. Obviously his grappling should improve training with a great coach like Ricky Lundell. It may just come down to strength and finding different ways to avoid the situation.

As dangerous as it may be, Mir should try to box with Overeem. He may not have many knockouts to his resume, but he still has tremendous power. Also people tend to forget that Mir uses knee strikes very well. That was a big reason behind his victories over Mirko Cro Cop and Roy Nelson. We know Overeem’s fighting stance has openings, along with the obvious conditioning issues. Those could be the openings he needs to keep his job. I’m sure will see him try to go for a takedown at some point, so he can get the fight to the ground and look for a submission. You never want to count Mir out because he’s defied the odds before. Now that he’s in-shape compared to fights in the past, he certainly can remain as a top heavyweight. It’ll come down to outworking Overeem and avoid clinching at all costs.

I’m not going to make my prediction for the fight until Friday. This is more of a breakdown of what both fighters have struggled at and how they can win this fight. Mir and Overeem are tremendous fighters so either one of them will be missed. In a perfect world, a reenactment of Antonio Silva and Mark Hunt would occur so both fighters can stay. I highly doubt this fight will go past the first round, so it should be a fascinating four to five minutes if the fight even lasts that long.

You can follow me on twitter at @Allen_Strk & @MMASucka for all news and updates.