The Greatest MMA News Column 09.22.09: Right Leg Hospital; Left Leg Cemetery
Posted by Dan Plunkett on 09.22.2009
411's Dan Plunkett takes a look back at the career of Mirko Cro Cop and where he goes from here. Also, discussion of the UFC welterweight and middleweight title pictures, Mayhem vs. Shields, Herschel Walker signing with Strikeforce, and much more!
Mirko's Swan Song
"Maybe the ones who have said that I'm done are right. Obviously, I can't break my mental block in the Octagon. Besides, I've been training like a Spartan for 20 years now — my body is worn out. The years caught up to me, I've been worn out…. [Junior dos Santos] won that fight and would have won it by decision. Simply put, he is younger, hungrier, and more aggressive. He wanted to win a lot more…. The mat was slippery like glass. I almost fell down trying to do the left high kick. But I'm not looking for an alibi. This was not the performance the public would pay for. I don't feel the hunger anymore. I started playing it safe; I'm not ready to take risks. I would like to thank everybody that supported me and stood by me and everyone who helped me to prepare for this fight. I've been living a military life for 20 years now. Getting up at 6 a.m. and having physically challenging task up to 8 p.m. I want a normal life. I'm entering a cage and thinking about fishing in Privlaka. You can't win that way. Maybe I should've quit after I won the open weight grand prix."
September 10, 2006, was the greatest night in the career of Mirko Filipović. On that night in Saitama, Japan, the man known as "Cro Cop" won the PRIDE Open Weight Grand Prix. The road to winning the title wasn't supposed to be easy, especially when he was taking on Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett.
Cro Cop had already met Silva once before, in an epic match-up with modified rules. After five 3-minute rounds of fighting, the bout was ruled a draw. Since that meeting, Silva had only lost twice, both of them coming by decision. "The Axe Murderer" had also just become the first man to legitimately finish "Ironhead" Fujita with strikes.
The highly anticipated rematch wasn't much of a contest. Mirko effectively countered Silva's haymakers, badly damaging him standing up. It was clear Cro Cop had all the answers for Wanderlei's style. The end came midway through the first round, when Cro Cop landed his most famous weapon – the left head kick. The win moved him into the finals.
The final of the grand prix was an all-too-familiar match-up. Cro Cop was set to take on Josh Barnett, who had defeated "Minotauro" Nogueira to advance to the culmination of the tournament. These two had met twice before, with the first ending in anticlimactic fashion after Barnett suffered a shoulder injury less than a minute into the bout. A year later the two met again, that time the match ended in a decision in favor of Mirko Cro Cop.
The Croatian kickboxing specialist controlled the fight from the get go, using his powerful kicks and left hands to hurt "The Baby Faced Assassin." The fight soon ended up on the ground, where Cro Cop had the top position. After a brief stand-up, the fight was taken back to the ground, where it would eventually end. While Barnett rolled for an armbar, Cro Cop landed a left hand to the eye; one more punch was all Barnett could take as he submitted due to the punishing strikes.
That night in September, on his 32nd birthday, nobody could have beaten Mirko Cro Cop. It was his night. This was a motivated, mentally focused, dominant Mirko Cro Cop; a Cro Cop which I do not believe will ever grace us with his presence again.
After his poor showing against Junior dos Santos, speculation began about what was in Mirko's future. Some say he should just fight cans, others say he should move to light heavyweight, and some are ready to call it quits with his career. I am a member of the latter group. In this sport, you need to be every bit as good mentally as physically. While I do think Cro Cop has something left physically, his head isn't in the sport anymore.
He said it himself, he's not hungry anymore. That's a very sad, yet incredibly honest, statement. You're in the wrong line of work if it's not keeping you motivated and you're not setting goals for yourself. It's not a bad thing that the fire has extinguished for Mirko, he's done great things throughout his career, now it's time for him to settle down. He can go fishing in Privlaka any time he pleases.
He never made it to the top of the sport (though he got damn close on more than one occasion), Mirko will always have a place in MMA history. His head kick knockouts are among the most famous KO's in history. In 2005, he took on Fedor Emelianenko in arguably the biggest fight in the history of the sport. On top of all that, he was among the calmest, most professional fighters in the sport. Enjoy your retirement Mirko, you've earned it.
Who Will Get the Next Middleweight Title Shot?
"The Phenom" returned to the UFC with a vengeance as he finished Rich Franklin in the first round. Vitor looked good in this fight, and with the win adds his name into the raffle for the middleweight title shot. It seems that Dana White wants to book Dan Henderson to fight Nate Marquardt and Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort next, but there may be a problem with that.
Anderson and his manager Ed Soares have been adamant that they only want Anderson in "big fights." While what they are exactly referring to is a bit sketchy, I presume they mean big money fights. All of this "big fight" talk is coming after Anderson fought Thales Leites at UFC 97. Though that wasn't a big fight, Anderson got a good payday for it due to Chuck Liddell fighting on the card, which brought in double the amount PPV buys that Anderson's last event got.
Vitor Belfort isn't a name that many casual fans will recognize. I'm sure the UFC will try and sell the fight on the lethality of Belfort's hands, but ultimately if people don't find him to be an intriguing character the buyrate will suffer. I think the UFC will feature a good drawing card in the co-main event to please Anderson.
I have endorsed Dan Henderson for the title shot at every opportunity I've got since he defeated Michael Bisping at UFC 100. That is the biggest middleweight fight they could make right now, capitalizing on Henderson's new found popularity. If I'm Anderson Silva and I'm looking for big money fights, the only fight in the middleweight division I want is against Dan Henderson.
Unfortunately, Dana doesn't have much interest in promoting Silva/Henderson 2 at this point: "Dan Henderson fought Anderson Silva and took him down in the first round and put his hand over Silva's mouth, and then in the second round, Anderson finished him." No matter how true that may be, that isn't something you say when you're trying to promote a fight. He discredits Henderson's performance in the first round by basically saying he did nothing but lay on "The Spider." Dana is trying to put the rematch on the shelf for a while by saying this (once again, no matter how true it may be).
The UFC will probably get their way and convince Henderson to take on Nate Marquardt, while Anderson Silva will defend his middleweight title (going for a record 6 consecutive defenses) against Vitor Belfort. I reached Ed Soares who said on the subject of Silva vs. Belfort: "I think that could be a great fight." So it looks like that's a fight they'd be interested in. Anderson will have a 4.5 inch reach advantage over "The Phenom," which I expect will be the difference maker in the fight. I don't know who to pick in Henderson vs. Marquardt, it depends on what Dan's game plan is in the fight.
UFC Welterweight Title Picture
We knew that after St. Pierre vs. Alves, the welterweight title picture would be all kinds of screwed up, but at least we'd have the comfort of a clear cut number 1 contender after Kampmann vs. Swick, right? Not so fast.
After Swick pulled out of his fight against Martin Kampmann and was replaced by Paul Daley, it was clear to pretty much everybody that this is a very dangerous fight for Kampmann. Daley is a monster on the feet, but on the ground he has a lot of room for improvement. For some reason, Kampmann decided to stand and trade punches with Daley. It wasn't long before the Dane was out on his feet, forcing Yves Lavigne to make a controversial, yet just, stoppage.
As of now, there is no true number 1 contender at welterweight. The obvious thing to do would be to put Paul Daley against Mike Swick for the title shot at UFC 105 in England. Should Swick win, he would deserve of the title shot, but he would be a huge underdog against the dominant St. Pierre. If Daley comes out the victor, there may be a problem. While a win over Swick would give him two wins over top 10 talent consecutively, and four wins in a row overall, I don't think he's ready for a title shot at this point in his career. Daley has lost twice in the past year, though those came against two very tough opponents, and the problem of his ground game still remains.
Right now, Paul's striking is some of the best in the division, but his ground game just isn't there yet. I'd rather see him get a title shot about a year-and-a-half from now, assuming he keeps winning. During that time he can develop his submissions and takedown defense.
The other welterweight fight on the main card of UFC 103 ended how I expected it to. Josh Koscheck's striking was too much for Frank Trigg, and he took him out early. I hope Koscheck can string together a good amount of wins over quality opponents, because a rematch against GSP is the only welterweight title fight I'm interested in at this point. Koscheck's hands are always improving and he has great wrestling, but will he be able to out-wrestle GSP the next time around? If St. Pierre wins that fight as easily as he's won his past 5, there's no reason for him to stay at welterweight.
Le Vacates Strikeforce MW Title; MayheM vs. Shields to Crown New Champ
This really should have happened a long time ago. Cung Le won the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship in March of 2008, how many times has he defended that title since? Zero. Hollywood must be a hell of a drug.
The title won't be vacated for long, as it will be contested on November 7. Former EliteXC welterweight kingpin Jake Shields will take on MTV star Jason "MayheM" Miller. This is an ideal match-up for Strikeforce, considering that Miller does have a name and popularity from hosting "Bully Beatdown" on MTV. Should Strikeforce promote the card during the MTV show, I think there will be a great amount of crossover viewers.
There is also a bit of a feud brewing between Shields and Miller, mostly over Shields claiming MayheM wouldn't sign the fight contract and was ducking him. Now that the fight is finally signed, Miller is saying he will either knock out or submit Shields, claiming he is better at everything. I wish Strikeforce had a countdown-like show leading up to this event, I'd love to hear more talk between these two.
Strikeforce Signs Herschel Walker
And you thought they were kidding when they showed Walker at the last Strikeforce event and talked about him fighting in the cage. This is nothing more than an attempt to get mentioned on ESPN programming and generate some interest for the company. It's at least worth the shot to get their name out there.
That is it for this week. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment, or email me here.
"The final of the OWGP was an all-too-familiar match-up. Cro Cop was set to take on Josh Barnett, who had defeated "Minotauro" Nogueira to advance to the culmination of the tournament. These two had met twice before, with the first ending in anticlimactic fashion after Barnett suffered a shoulder injury less than a minute into the bout. A year later the two met again, this time the match ended in a decision in favor of Mirko Cro Cop.
The Croatian kickboxing specialist controlled the fight from the get go, using his powerful kicks and left hands to hurt "The Baby Faced Assassin." The fight soon ended up on the ground, where Cro Cop had the top position. After a brief stand-up, the fight was taken back to the ground, where it would eventually end. While Barnett rolled for an armbar, Cro Cop landed a left hand to the eye; another punch was all Barnett could take as he submitted due to the punishing strikes. "
Ummm what?
Posted By: Adam (Guest) on September 22, 2009 at 09:02 AM
It isn't a mental block. It is the fact that the new fighters are all so much bigger than him, and he doesn't have a fighting style or skill gap to neutralize that. Cro Cop comes in lighter than Randy Couture does, and Randy has a different style and fights at LHW if he has to. Wand dropped to LHW too even though he's the same size as CC, and indeed, the two have a storied rivalry with each other.
I don't really care too much about CC, if he wants to hang it up then that's his prerogative. But you just don't lose all your skills overnight. Or maybe he just always had a mental weakness. Either way, if he wants to give it another shot, 205 is the way to go. He needs to stop making excuses and just cut that water weight, it won't be a problem.
Posted By: Guest#1249 (Guest) on September 22, 2009 at 05:59 PM
Posted By: Guest#1249 (Guest) on September 22, 2009 at 05:59 PM
Did you even read what Cro Cop said? He's not hungry anymore, you can have all the skills in the world but if you never pull them out and use them it means nothing. He is not trying to make excuses, he's saying his head is no longer in it, which is the most legit reason for a poor performance there is. He is not saying it's someone else's fault, or an injury, or a mistake. He just wasn't 100% into it, which is costly when fighting a motivated fighter. Cro Cop continues to be professional and be honest about his last few fights.
I am a huge Cro Cop fan, he's one of my Top 3 favourite fighters(for his Pride days, plus I'm Croatian as well), but I want to see him retire. I don't want to see him continue to lose. If he can somehow rededicate himself and get the mental edge back, moving down to 205 must happen.
Posted By: Shawno420 (Guest) on September 22, 2009 at 08:19 PM
