Frank Mir Backlash Unwarranted

Frank Mir recently shared in an interview that in his mind he was going to “kill” Brock Lesnar the next time they meet in the Octagon. He received quite a bit of backlash from both media and his employers at the UFC. While Mir is known to toy the line of hyping a fight and trash talk, it seems that that reputation and peoples dislike for his attitude has made the community react more harshly than it normally would. Lesnar, BJ Penn and Kenny Florian have all used terms involving death or killing when hyping future match ups but none received the harsh reprimand that Mir has. Obviously there has been much work done to enhance the image of MMA to gain regulation in new states as well as mainstream acceptance, but being a combat sport we should expect fighter to have an aggressive attitude when hyping an upcoming fight.