The underdogs were on fire in Brazil on Sunday night and Frank Mir capped that off in the main event at UFC Fight Night 61 when he knocked out Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva early in the first round.
Silva started out flat footed and extremely cautious — this fed right into Mir’s arsenal. Coming out as a south paw, Mir threw the big man off immediately. He landed a couple of nice jabs to kick off the bout and was able to finish “Bigfoot” just shy of two-minutes with a giant punch that dropped him, followed up by some serious elbows.
Following the fight, Mir praised his coaches in his post-fight speech.
“I came out looking for the jab. I knew, hey, he hits hard, no doubt behind that. He has a long right hand. … My [coaches] said, ‘Hey, switch back to orthodox,’ and so I did that. It’s why I took some time off. I learned how to box the correct way. I got back to the roots.
“The jab sets up everything, and I’ve never had a dominating jab. But a dominating jab sets up everything. It’s the most important punch, especially in the heavyweight division.”
The victory snapped a four fight losing streak for Mir and took the 35-year-old’s record to 17-9 overall.
- Frank Mir def. Antonio Silva via Knockout (Strikes) at 1:40 of Round 1
