Luke Thomas: Let's move to UFC 141, again it's gonna be at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on a Friday, December 30th, the day before New Year's Eve. It's kind of an interesting fight and people are trying to say this is a classic grappler versus striker and I suppose in some sense it is, but I want you to talk in your judgment about the ground game over Overeem and, more specifically, he's got a guillotine which in and of itself is a high percentage submission and he really kind of good with it. How do you evaluate the ground game of Alistair Overeem today?
Frank Mir: I think that Alistair obviously just uses his ground game to avoid taking punishment and that way, when he gets back up to his feet, he's very damaging. I think you're right, I think he does have an excellent guillotine but Lesnar doesn't really shoot with his head on the side and kind of wade right in like, Hrmm, I wonder if he's able to grab and pull it up. Another thing too, when Alistair's guillotine has been so dangerous has been at 205. I really haven't seen him and I could be wrong and people are more than welcome to correct me with how many wins he has as a heavyweight with a guillotine because I know, for me personally, the thicker your arm gets, when it comes to some chokes, like the palm from behind or the guillotine, we're using the forearm. Guys, like a Jon Jones-type, with a real long, thin forearm are way more menacing than a guy with like a Lesnar tike arm and I think that's kind of what Overeem's done to himself. He's gone from a Jon Jones-type forearm to a Lesnar so I wonder how that's affected his guillotine.
Luke Thomas: That's interesting, so in other words, you believe that the muscle-building, while it certainly has some advantages, obviously strength being one of them or perhaps some others, you believe that there's a trade-off there in terms of being an effective grappler.
Frank Mir: Well, I'm talking specifically just the chokes where you bring the forearm across. You don't really see guys with really big arms pulling off guillotines. Another way I try to explain it to people is the triangle. The guys with long, thin legs are way more menacing than a guy with thick legs and it seems like when they put the choke on, it's not really like bone digging into the side of the neck, it's softer, it's across the neck and my jaw line , it's more surface area.
Luke Thomas: Alright real quickly, I know you originally favored Brock Lesnar in this match-up. Do you still favor him?
Frank Mir: I do and I only add to it because I wonder how distracted Overeem had to be during his camp. He had things to deal with commission-wise, flying here, flying there, that's a lot of traveling for a person who's training for a high level main event fight.
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