Frank Mir: Hide your razor blades around slow-witted Todd Duffee

Frank Mir was front and center during a number of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) activities this past week in Las Vegas, Nevada, making the rounds at the UFC Fan Expo, as well as the UFC 189 pay-per-view (PPV) event, which went down last Saturday night (July 11, 2015) in "Sin City."

The former heavyweight champion was also traveling the media circuit in order to promote his upcoming fight against Todd Duffee, which is set to pop off tomorrow night (Weds., July 15, 2015) at UFC Fight Night 71 in San Diego, California.

After all, if he doesn't bring attention to the FOX Sports 1 event, no one else will. Especially not Duffee, who apparently lacks the marketing ability and name power to sell tickets.

Mir broke it down to MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani:

"They asked me to come promote the fight a little bit. Obviously, Todd Duffee's name is not drawing a lot of attention and selling tickets. So, I'm doing my part to fill up the stadium as well as possible. Also, with our co-main event falling off, we gotta make sure we do as well as we can. I think [Duffee] has that little sidekick. Maybe they can send him in to do the talking. Duffee, I don't think he's the best marketer. He's just not the quickest-witted individual in the world."

He's certainly no Brock Lesnar... or Conor McGregor?

All burns aside, Mir initially didn't want to take the fight against his former training partner, though he doesn't view the match-up as a step down. But as impressive a physical specimen as Todd is, his overall mixed martial arts (MMA) skills haven't exactly progressed.

"As far as Todd physically, people look at him and he looks like a physical dynamo. The average UFC fan just looks at him on the scale when we weigh-in and they are like ,'Oh my!' When he takes his shirt off, he is quite impressive. And I think for two or three minutes he is a very impressive fighter. I just think that his style is very athletically orientated, as in he fights and uses his advantages he has as an athlete. But he hasn't really grown and learned technique to be efficient, to have his hips under him in the proper way; to move the right way to where he can push that athletic ability to the next level. That being said, I think he spends a lot of his training, I've been with him in camp so I know they got to spend so much time on his head, that developing other aspects of his game could cause maybe a lack of confidence and cause him to doubt himself. And those are things he's already doing. He is very much an extremist and I'm sure there is a five-minute span today where he just thought he could beat the world like King Kong. Then there is a five-minute span where they have to make sure they hide all of the razor blades in the bathroom."

Well, that was "disturbing."

Mir recently broke a four-fight losing skid by knocking out Antonio Silva in the very first round at UFC Fight Night 61 earlier this year (see it). A much-needed victory for the longtime veteran, one that ensured his place on the UFC roster would be intact for a few more fights.

He can prolong that stay if he can make it two straight against the hard-hitting Duffee, who has now won three in a row via first-round stoppage.

For more on UFC Fight Night 71 click here.