WatchKalibRun tracked down the Brock Lesnar remarks:
Well, Brock Lesnar said something very similar about Frank Mir to Maxim.com, except this was in the lead up to UFC 100 (thanks tokreatorofpain for tip):
Does Frank Mir stand a chance in UFC 100? Did he get lucky in his first fight against Lesnar? Isn't a more experienced Lesnar, who was already bigger and stronger, unstoppable? "I'm gonna murder him," Lesnar says. "I count the days and the nights before I get to do that."
MMA Fighting documents more of the atrocities:
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."
I just have to say, this is all becoming incredibly overblown, but it's very typical of our current media climate in which out of context quotes can suddenly become controversial "gotcha" moments. It's Frank Mir's turn in the barrel, but it could happen to any fighter at any time who's thoughtless enough and unlucky enough to say the wrong thing to the wrong media outlet at the wrong time.
As SBNation's pro-wrestling blog Cage Side Seats wrote, it's much ado about nothing -- and they know about empty hype:
Not really, as Zach Arnold points out it's just a misjudged pro wrestling style promo to hype up a potential rubber match with Lesnar. Of course, a trained professional wrestler would know never to say such a thing, because you never tease something you can't deliver on. In MMA it's even dumber, given that the sport is not yet legal in some major North American markets (such as New York and Toronto) and opponents of the sport could capitalize on such comments to keep it banned in those states. And Jonathan Snowden was mocked for having the gall to suggest that such promos could be bad for the image of the sport after UFC 100! Fortunately no-one was paying attention this time, so hopefully Dana White will give Mir a good talking to and it won't happen again.