Lesnar to tap out at 1:30 of the first round. Mir was awarded with Submission of the Night honors. The Ultimate Fighter season 8 Spike TV announced on May 12, 2008, that former UFC champion Frank Mir would face off with the current UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion and former PRIDE Heavyweight Champion Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira as the coaches for the eighth season of The Ultimate Fighter. The season, which premiered on Spike TV on September 17, returned to the two weight class format. It featured Light heavyweight and Lightweight fighters. Production on season eight began in late May, with the entire cast announced in September, and concluded in December. Second heavyweight championship Mir fought his fellow Ultimate Fighter coach, Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, at UFC 92 for the Interim UFC Heavyweight Championship. This bout was part of a mini-Heavyweight tournament, often hyped by UFC president Dana White. The winner of this fight would then face the winner of the match between the Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar. Lesnar defeated Couture by TKO in the second round, earning him the Heavyweight Championship belt in the process and setting him up to face the winner of Nogueira/Mir to unify the belts. In the fight with Nogueira, Mir showcased vastly improved striking, particularly his boxing, knocking down the Brazilian twice in the first round and once in the second. Herb Dean stopped the match at 1:54 of the second round, declaring Mir the winner. Nogueira's loss marked the first time he had lost a fight due to strikes. In a post-fight interview, Mir credited his improved striking to a drastic improvement in conditioning. Two days after the fight, Dana White revealed in an interview that "Nogueira had just gotten over a Staph infection." Nogueira himself verified this fact several months later in his own interview, stating that he had a staph infection "20 days before the fight, [requiring] 5 days in the hospital." When asked if this infection affected his fight, he answered, "For sure." In addition to this illness, his knee was injured during training, for which he had surgery in February 2009. Despite these handicaps, Nogueira offered strong praise for Mir's performance, with particular credit given to Mir's ability to maintain "very good distance." Heavyweight championship unification Mir's victory over Nogueira set in place a re-match with the UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. However, Mir