Frank Mir may have crossed the line when he said he'd like Brock Lesnar "to be the first person that dies due to Octagon-related injuries." But in fairness to Mir, it should be pointed out that he's far from the only person associated with the UFC who has talked about fighting to the death. In fact, before they fought at UFC 100, Lesnar said of Mir, "I'm gonna murder him. I count the days and nights before I get to do that."
That's far from the only example.
Prior to UFC 94 last year, B.J. Penn addressed Georges St. Pierre in a video shot and distributed by the UFC by saying, "Georges, I'm going to go to the death. I'm going to try to kill you and I'm not joking about this."
Just days before Mir made his comments about Lesnar, UFC President Dana White said, "You know what would happen to Herschel Walker over here? It would be the first death in MMA."
The same week that Mir made his comments about Lesnar, another UFC heavyweight, Cain Velasquez, said of his UFC 110 fight with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, "He is going to have to kill me, and I will have to kill him to beat him out there, and that's what we'll do to each other."
Chuck Liddell told Ariel Helwani of his upcoming fight with Tito Ortiz, "I'm gonna try to kill him."
After earning a shot at Penn last year, Kenny Florian looked at Penn and said, "I consider you a master, and it's time to kill that master."
Mir is usually a model of sportsmanship and a fighter who embodies the best aspects of the martial arts mentality. If he went too far in explaining his motivation for a third fight with Lesnar, he was far from the first person affiliated with the UFC to do so.