Mirko Cro Cop returns to his Japanese roots and a highly touted Top 5 battle between JZ Calvancante and Shinya Aoki ends in disappointment.
Mirko Cro Cop returned from a disappointing stint in the UFC with a disappointing first minute TKO victory over Tatsuya Mizuno that did not feature a highlight knockout.
JZ Calvancante and Shinya Aoki met in a much publicized battle of top 5 world lightweights. Calvancante got the better of each exchange, dropping Aoki a couple of times, but when ground and pounding he looked to land a couple of elbows to the back of Aoki's head. Aoki acted out of it and confused and the fight was ruled a no contest. It looked fishy at first notice but the replay showed Aoki did indeed eat a couple of shots to his neck. Still questionable, if only for the fact JZ was controlling the fight.
In other action, American Eddie Alvarez beat a very game Andre Amade in a Vegas tossup fight. As predicted, Amade got the much better of the exchanges but Alvarez used his wrestling to take the fight to the ground and secure a ground-and-pound victory.
Top Japanese lightweights Tatsuya Kawajiri, Mitsuhiro Ishida, and Mach Sakurai were all also victorious with the first two winning decisions and the latter getting a first round TKO with a solid punch followed by unprotected strikes until it was stopped.
How is a first minute TKO victory a disappointment?
Posted By: Champ (Guest) on March 15, 2008 at 09:38 AM
Aoki didn't get dropped at all. I suppose he got dropped once when he went to block a leg kick and got kicked on the other leg but apart from that he didn't get dropped. The only other time he went down was from when he tried to jump into guard but failed. But regardless what puzzled me was why in the hell was JZ even attempting to elbow anywhere near the head. I can understand to the body but to the shoulder (the only upper body part legal) just seemed a massive waste that would do very little damage.
Posted By: Craig (Guest) on March 15, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Perhaps that was my way of saying Aoki was getting dominated on the feet. When you're practically butt scooting and JZ keeps tossing you that's not a good sign.
" How is a first minute TKO victory a disappointment?"
When everyone expects you to win the in the first minute of the first round and it's not fantastic. He just hit the guy, he fell, and then after a couple of mediocre ground shots it was stopped. He might as well have fought me. When you fight a can, and I love Cro Cop, atleast brutally destroy him like it's meant to be.
Posted By: Michael Huckaby (Registered) on March 15, 2008 at 10:17 AM
Butt scooting is not getting dropped though and I wouldn't say it was domination on the feet since JZ didn't land one clean strike. Aoki was obviously very wary of JZ's hands but he did not land 1 clean blow except for the elbows at the end of the fight. This fight needs to re-happen hopefully in the 2nd round since there was only 7 scheduled fights in the 1st event. I am not playing down what happened in the fight but it was far from domination on the feet.
Posted By: Craig (Guest) on March 15, 2008 at 10:53 AM
Actually, seeing CC use his hands was pleasant. It seemed like he was really obsessesd with getting the highlight reel LHK in his UFC bouts, and it affected his game adversely. He's back with his old coach now and will focus on letting has hands go, which I personally believe is great. People tend to forget how good he is with his hands because they're too busy fawning over his LHK. I do think this match-up was a joke though. Nakao was bad enough, but at least he was a good wrestler with a solid record. CCs next fight needs to be against a real fighter.
Kharitonov anyone?
Posted By: Morten (Guest) on March 15, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Cro cop destroyed Mizuno, I don't see how it was disapointing
Posted By: Guest#2680 (Guest) on March 15, 2008 at 04:14 PM
Micheal, a professional MMA fighter should NEVER look for a highlight reel KO or he might be KO'ed himself. Just look what happened to Mirko in UFC where he was just distancing for a LHK or another example would be Liddell vs Jardine where Chuck was just looking for that mega punch, which never connected. Any victory is impressive, especially a TKO one.
Posted By: James (Guest) on March 16, 2008 at 07:56 AM
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