UFC success has long been predicted, if not guaranteed, for former Centennial High School wrestling star Bella Mir.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old picked up some more gold on her detour through collegiate wrestling Saturday in Coralville, Iowa.<\/p>\n
Mir, the daughter of former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir, won the 145-pound national championship with a first-period pin of No. 1 seed Reese Larramendy from Iowa.<\/p>\n
It was redemption for Mir, a senior at North Central (Illinois) College who started her career with the Hawkeyes before injuries prompted her to transfer in search of a fresh start. Her only loss of the season came against Larramendy.<\/p>\n
Mir won four state titles at Centennial and is undefeated in four fights as a professional mixed martial artist. She also competes at a high level in jiu-jitsu and traveled to Mexico to compete in her first pro fight because she was still only 17 years old.<\/p>\n
She went to college on the first name, image and likeness deal the UFC ever did with an athlete.<\/p>\n
After her victory, Mir and her father embraced in tears before she celebrated with her teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have fans and teammates like that, how do I lose?\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s my biggest support system along with my family and my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
While a UFC deal awaits at some point, it\u2019s likely Mir will remain on the regional circuit as long as she continues to pursue wrestling. That journey could include the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n
She did end her postfight interview by suggesting she would venture back into MMA for a bit now that her college career is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to go have a fight, baby,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n
Mir finished second nationally last year.<\/p>\n
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow @AdamHillLVRJ<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC success has long been predicted, if not guaranteed, for former Centennial High School wrestling star Bella Mir.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-523387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}