Hunt-Mir Mark Hunt (left) and Frank Mir muck around ... we think ... in Brisbane earlier this year. (Photo by Getty Images)

The Brisbane Entertainment Centre will host a classic striker/grappler battle when Mark Hunt gets into the Octagon against Frank Mir this Sunday at UFC Fight Night Brisbane.

This event marks the second UFC event to be held in the Queensland capital, and the ninth in Australia, illustrating the UFC’s commitment to the Australian market as a key region.

The last we saw of Mark Hunt (fight record 11-10-1) was his UFC 193 win in Melbourne over Bigfoot Silva. This time he’ll be up in front of a home crowd against another Octagon stalwart in Mir (18-10-0) of the USA. The Super Samoan will try to land on the former heavyweight champ, best-known for getting Brock Lesnar to tap out way back in UFC 81.

Hunt, the biggest name in Aussie MMA (known for his spectacular walk off KO’s) and Mir are both veterans of the sport entering the twilight of their careers, but still trying to get back into Heavyweight title contention. Heavyweight is generally a thinner division numbers-wise in UFC as there is less talent around (stringing a couple of wins together usually gets you back in the title picture) but we’re not about to tell either of these warriors there’s anything easy about what they do in the slightest …

Both Mir and Hunt have experienced late-career resurgences; indeed, a lot of heavyweight fighters do seem to peak later into their 30s than other weight classes. These guys often get counted out too soon though, like current Heavyweight champ Fabricio Werdum, who is 38.

Hunt has a deceiving pro MMA record. He’s fought world-class competition for much of his career since entering the PRIDE organisation in 2004 where he suffered a debut submission loss to Hidehiko Yoshida. Since then he’s gone on to defeat the likes of Wanderlei Silva, Mirko Cro Cop, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, and Dan Bobish.

Former UFC Heavyweight champ Mir, one of the best grapplers at heavyweight, has won two of his last three but lost his last fight to Andrei Arlovski.

Click here for the full UFC Fight Night Brisbane card, which features several top-quality Aussie fighters, such as Jake Matthews and Bec Rawlings.