Strikeforce announced yesterday that World Grand Prix Heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier would be in the co-main event of the September 29th fight card and his opponent would be announced in the coming days.
His opponent will be coming from the UFC and that man is former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir. The news of the fight was first reported by USA Today and Cormier confirmed the news with MMA Weekly.
Since the report of this fight, Cormier has said that the fight will not take place on September 29th and the fight will likely take place in October.
There was a report last week that Cormier’s opponent would be former UFC champion Tim Sylvia, but that report was denied by UFC officials.
Cormier (10-0) won the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament earlier this year with a unanimous decision victory over Josh Barnett. He was not originally in the tournament and replaced Alistair Overeem, when the former Strikeforce champion was pulled from the tournament. His win in the semifinals of the tournament against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was considered one of the major upsets in 2011.
Mir (16-6) is a former two time UFC heavyweight champion and was recently defeated by current UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos at UFC 146 on Memorial Day weekend. Prior to that fight, he was on a three fight winning streak, with wins over Mirko Cro Cop, Roy Nelson and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
After this fight, both fighters will move over to the UFC an a win by Cormier could put him in line for a title shot in 2013.