Frank Mir: Losing streak happened because of injury not age

The last time Frank Mir heard the word retirement tossed around about his career was following a motorcycle accident in 2004 just months after he won his first UFC heavyweight title.

The crash ripped Mir's leg apart and put him out of action for over a year.  As each day turned into a week and then weeks into months, it seemed less and less likely that Mir would ever return to the same form that saw him dominate as the best heavyweight in the UFC.

17 months after the accident, Mir returned to the Octagon, but he didn't get back to form until 2007 when he finally put together a big string of wins that included victories over Brock Lesnar and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.  Fast forward to 2015 as Mir prepares to face Antonio 'Bigfoot' Silva in the main event of UFC Fight Night from Brazil and the former champion has been bombarded with questions about his retirement once again.

This time it's because Mir is riding the first four fight-losing streak of his career and a fifth consecutive defeat would put him in awfully deep water trying to find breathing room for another fight in the UFC.

But much like the last time Mir was faced with the prospect of retirement, he promises the biggest ailment he's had in his recent defeats had nothing to do with him getting a little older or even the competition just getting better.  It was once again due to his body failing him and Mir finally had to realize something had to change.

"It was more or less just fighting through surgeries. Shoulder surgery for the (Junior) dos Santos fight, elbow surgery before my (Daniel) Cormier fight, knee surgery and not really addressing them properly so they affected the way I trained sometimes," Mir explained when speaking to FOX Sports recently.

"Let's face it, fighting the guy I'm fighting like 'oh you're having a hard time rolling to your left because of your shoulder well okay I'll just go to your right'.  I was just being delusional as fighters are sometimes that I could just make it through somehow.  It's unrealistic.  You're not training it everyday in the gym, how is it all of a sudden going to come out in the fight?"

Mir knows in his heart if he would have been completely healthy at the time the outcomes could have been different, but the last thing he's going to do is take away anything from the fighters who beat him. 

There's no excuse after the fact and Mir stands by his decision to take the fights when he did -- even if it ultimately wasn't the best choice for his career.

"I don't want to diminish any of the guys who won the fights and take away from them.  Basically, I just wasn't able to do what I wanted to do," Mir said. "I wasn't completely healthy but there were still ways I could have won the fight.  At the time some of the decisions I made wasn't about the most efficient technique or concept to use and it was just geared around what I could do specifically.  It was the exact opposite of what fighters usually do."

Mir doesn't discount what a four-fight losing streak often means for fighters under contract to the UFC, but he also knows the level of competition he's been facing during the toughest run of his career.

He lost to former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos and Josh Barnett as well as No. 1 contenders Daniel Cormier and Alistair Overeem.  In other words, Mir doesn't feel ashamed losing the fights he lost although he admits his performances definitely didn't reflect what he's really capable of doing inside the Octagon.

So Mir took the last 12 months off from fighting and now as he enters his first fight in 2015, he's feeling better than he has in years.

"Everybody fights tough guys, you get losses.  Mine wasn't so much because of age, it was because of injury," Mir said.  "That's why I took time off.  If I couldn't perform at a high level, win or lose, if I wasn't able to live up to my performance, that I could live with.  Going out there and my body wouldn't allow me to perform.

"That's why I re-evaluated myself.  If I wasn't able to get back to a certain level of training, I would have retired."

Following two years where he felt like he was held together by duct tape and glue, Mir is relieved to finally be fighting again when his body is as close to 100-percent as it's ever going to get and he promises his performance will reflect it on Sunday night in Brazil.

"I want to win fights, but I want to go out there and put on a performance," Mir said.  "I want to go out there and do something to make it beautiful to watch.  I want to fight at a high level."