Mir alters training for Cormier match

Las Vegan Frank Mir was born and raised in the fight capital of the world and has never seen a reason to train elsewhere during his illustrious Ultimate Fighting Championship career.

The Bonanza High School product has decided to make a change, however, after losing his third straight title fight, the most recent setback coming to Junior dos Santos in May.

Mir, 33, will train under Greg Jackson at his famed gym in Albuquerque, N.M., for eight weeks leading up to an April 20 fight against Daniel Cormier at UFC on Fox 7 in San Jose, Calif.

“You have to constantly evaluate what you’re doing and try to improve upon it. You look at things to change. My trainers here are all top notch. They’re all world-class coaches and competitors, but my wife and I were discussing how maybe I should change things up,” the ex-heavyweight champion said.

It was not an easy call for Mir, who says he’s never spent more than a few days at a time away from his wife and four children. He plans to train in New Mexico five days a week and fly home on weekends. Eventually, he and wife Jen decided that ensuring success in his career was what’s best for the family.

In previous camps, Mir said, “If one of the kids is sick or if practice ran over or if whatever would come up, then practice would get pushed off to the wayside because I am a father and husband before a fighter.

“When I’m out of town during the week, I can solely focus on fighting. On weekends, you have to rest anyway, so why rest in a hotel where you’re staring at the wall when I can be holding my kids.”

The move could have another benefit. Mir said the few times he’s been away from his family for whatever reason, he gets angry and frustrated.

“It’s funny, I was talking to my wife and she said, ‘You’ve choked people unconscious, you’ve broken limbs, knocked people out and you were never upset or angry or had any kind of animosity,’ ” Mir said. “She goes, ‘Maybe you being pissed off will be kind of a dangerous thing for your opponents.’ ”

That next opponent is Cormier, an Olympic wrestler who is making his UFC debut with a ton of hype after a successful run in Strikeforce.

Mir isn’t buying the hype.

“He’s a great athlete and he’s done well on the Strikeforce level. He hasn’t had any spectacular fights for someone at his level of competition,” Mir said. “I was actually kind of disappointed watching his last fight. I’m kind of thinking he sandbagged it on purpose just to get me overconfident. There wasn’t a whole lot of positives to pull out of that fight on his part.”

There has been talk that Cormier will drop to light heavyweight after the bout, but Mir thinks Cormier should make an even more drastic cut to middleweight (185 pounds).

“I know he wrestled at 184 in college, so it’s not a farfetched idea that he’s not a light heavyweight, but maybe a middleweight,” Mir said.

■ MACDONALD INJURED — UFC welterweight contender Rory MacDonald suffered an injury in training and is out of his UFC 158 rematch with Carlos Condit on March 16 in Montreal, the organization said.

Johny Hendricks, who had been scheduled to fight Jake Ellenberger on the card, is now expected to fight Condit.

No replacement opponent has been named for Ellenberger.

■ SANTOS TO INVICTA — After a public back-and-forth between UFC president Dana White and fighter-turned-manager Tito Ortiz, Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos has rebuffed the UFC and signed with all-female promotion Invicta Fights. She will debut against Ediane Gomes on April 5 in Kansas City, Mo.

Santos is widely believed to be the biggest threat to UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. The two have traded jabs in the press and on social media, mostly stemming from Cyborg’s claims she can’t get down to Rousey’s 135-pound weight class.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.