How special was Mirko Cro Cop?

Why?

HW is weaker today than it was during Mirko’s reign of terror in Pride.

Cain was touted as the best UFC HW ever a few years back, and he got wrecked by Werdum who couldn’t crack the top 5 in Pride.

Ngannou vs a mid tier HW in Hunt would be a tossup fight.

Where is your evidence of this supposed HW evolution?

Nice strawman.

Fact is of course it's easier to land things in earlier days of MMA because less people know how to properly defend. Nearly all of Mirko's headkick KOs are from the early days of his career. As his career progressed he got less of them despite still throwing headkicks. It's almost like people got better at defending headkicks or something.

There's a reason why you asked how come we don't see headkicks KOs as much these days as opposed to asking if headkicks themselves are less prevalent these days. They're obviously not, fighters throw them every fight. You literally cited Gaethje's most recent one completely unironically. Gaethje threw 3 headkicks that night and Poirier himself also threw 1. There were 4 headkicks from guys not at all particularly known for headkicks and 3x of them were correctly blocked before the 4th wasn't. And even then Poirier still managed to throw up a partial guard in the split second he had to realize one was coming.

Like golly gee, it's almost like fighters are better at not getting kicked in the fucking head these days or something.

Also I love the other complete irony of saying HW hasn't evolved after Derrick Lewis just won another fight by flying knee KO. Please show me which 265lb fighters were doing that back then.
 
Dude you summed it up absolutely perfectly.
Thank you brother, there are definitely so many things you could mention about Cro Cop. His wins in K-1 over Bob Sapp (at that time a beast), Remy Bojansky (future K-1 Dominant Champ, Mark Hunt and then to expound on that with a successful MMA career is insane. Cro Cop's dedication to the craft of martial arts, working on his wrestling, takedown defense, hiring Werdum as his BJJ coach, shows his level of commitment to the game, to martial arts. He was the best striker to enter MMA, and did it at the highest levels of the best orgs, against the best HW fighters. One of my favorite fighters of all time.
 
On debut I think he looked good physically, it was just his opponent was on his bike and he wasnt used to the octagon size. Against Gabea I think a mix of not being prepped for elbows and Gonzaga being a flaky but very dangerous guy who had the perfect performance. Mirko's style was always dangerous because he'd stand right infront of people and only look to pick out big shots, he didnt throw any weak jabs or lowkicks to disrupt opponents just depended on his reactions to get out of the way or counter. I think the Kongo fight a mix of lack of confidence(had some lacklustre performances in pride after loses as well), not being able to deal with cage clinching and Cheick cheating like crazy landing about half a dozen low blow, Big Jon seemed to think it was only a foul if you caught both of them that night.

The return to the UFC I think he'd clearly declined, several bad leg injuries plus age/wear generally meant he no longer had the speed to land his big kicks on reaction anymore, he had to totally change his game.
This 100%. He dominated Eddie Sanchez and then Gonzaga just messed him up. It took him a while to adjust to the cage, looks like he only did towards the end of his UFC career. At least he got that win over Gonzaga again. The prime Kongo nut shots certainly did not help at all. And he definitely did have some lackluster performances in Pride as well. Going to the distance with some less than fighters. Still, IMO to come back at Rizin, beat King Mo and Amir Aliakbari for the HW title was a pretty fitting end to his career. And now Amir Aliakbari is the title contender for ONE's HW championship. If Cro Cop was still able to fight, I have no doubt in my mind he'd still be the Rizin HW champion and Rizin would have procured more talent at that weight class. He'd beat Sudario.
 
The first kickboxer to properly evolve to MMA fighter. It was awesome seeing him learn to sprawl and submit and then keep it on the feet. It was world class at the time to be that well rounded. He also had an aura to him.

The sport evolved past him but he’ll always be my #2 behind Fedor for what he brought to the sport. They are my Ryu and Ken.
A great way to put it, the Ryu and Ken. Exactly that type of portrayal. Although who is Big Nog then?
 
It wasn’t just his style of fighting and all the head kick KO’s. It was his whole persona, Anti-Terrorist squad leader, such a fucking bad ass.
 
It was just a different time. People at least train for it or know how to defend certain things now. It's like those armbar or triangle specialists. You don't really see them anymore either. Crocop was special because he was doing it when majority of people had any idea how to even throw a leg kick. I don't even think he has more than 4-5 headkick KO wins in MMA but he was doing it when nobody was doing it. The overall level of striking in MMA wasn't decent yet.
 
Dude had a lightning fast kick that he could disguise really well. He would fuck up your body with it and then crack you upside your dome once you started bringing your hands down. This is why Fedor's defence in their fight was so impressive, as he was the first to figure out (in Pride) how to stifle his kicks...with a mixture of blocking and aggression (putting CroCop on his back foot).

If CC dictated the footwork and was pressing you, he would ensnare you with the LHK and send you into a fucking coma. Fedor put the kibosh on that and was implementing checks and constantly pressing CC (loved when he bitch tossed him after an attempted high kick). The establishment of the right range (and who was dictating control of the ring/cage) seemed crucial to surviving against cro cop.

When you pair his athletic prowess, power and god tier sprawling at the time, he was like the Freddy Krueger for many wrestlers (e.g., Coleman, Barnett) when they could not use the cage as a tool. His experience in K1 also gave him the distinct advantage of being able to trap people in the corners of the ring (whereas the cage he avoided training in and did not offer those same advantages).

As already noted, his grappling was pretty underrated. He was not an offensive grappler by any stretch of the imagination but his work with Werdum allowed him to be defensively sound. I love how he could just put his legs on your hips and f****** through you across the ring before standing up.

Dude is a goddamn legend. Sure he may have been roiding to the gills, but who the f*** wasn't that that time? I'm sure most athletes in the sport still roid but can disguise it better now. Back then everyone looked like a goddamn action figure. Think about it, coleman, randleman, wand....looked ridiculous. Can't really knock him for taking roids as literally everyone around them was at the same time.
 
This 100%. He dominated Eddie Sanchez and then Gonzaga just messed him up. It took him a while to adjust to the cage, looks like he only did towards the end of his UFC career. At least he got that win over Gonzaga again. The prime Kongo nut shots certainly did not help at all. And he definitely did have some lackluster performances in Pride as well. Going to the distance with some less than fighters. Still, IMO to come back at Rizin, beat King Mo and Amir Aliakbari for the HW title was a pretty fitting end to his career. And now Amir Aliakbari is the title contender for ONE's HW championship. If Cro Cop was still able to fight, I have no doubt in my mind he'd still be the Rizin HW champion and Rizin would have procured more talent at that weight class. He'd beat Sudario.

Again I don't want to take credit away from Gonzaga, I think Mirko's inability to deal with the elbows was a factor but the biggest factor was Gabe gave an amazing performance, caught the first kick Mirko threw for a takedown then landed a great head kick, he was a dangerous mofo but inconsistent.

You look after Mirko's loses to Randleman/Fedor and some of the performances were not great, went to a decision against Kanehara and then looked off his best vs Barnett the 2nd time and vs Hunt. Reality is I'd say he was a confidence fighter who built up to a peak in form.

I think latter in his career he did adjust to his situation more, put on more muscle and became more of a power fighter although I think it helped he was fighting a lot of grapplers as well.
 
Dude had a lightning fast kick that he could disguise really well. He would fuck up your body with it and then crack you upside your dome once you started bringing your hands down. This is why Fedor's defence in their fight was so impressive, as he was the first to figure out (in Pride) how to stifle his kicks...with a mixture of blocking and aggression (putting CroCop on his back foot).

If CC dictated the footwork and was pressing you, he would ensnare you with the LHK and send you into a fucking coma. Fedor put the kibosh on that and was implementing checks and constantly pressing CC (loved when he bitch tossed him after an attempted high kick). The establishment of the right range (and who was dictating control of the ring/cage) seemed crucial to surviving against cro cop.

When you pair his athletic prowess, power and god tier sprawling at the time, he was like the Freddy Krueger for many wrestlers (e.g., Coleman, Barnett) when they could not use the cage as a tool. His experience in K1 also gave him the distinct advantage of being able to trap people in the corners of the ring (whereas the cage he avoided training in and did not offer those same advantages).

As already noted, his grappling was pretty underrated. He was not an offensive grappler by any stretch of the imagination but his work with Werdum allowed him to be defensively sound. I love how he could just put his legs on your hips and f****** through you across the ring before standing up.

Dude is a goddamn legend. Sure he may have been roiding to the gills, but who the f*** wasn't that that time? I'm sure most athletes in the sport still roid but can disguise it better now. Back then everyone looked like a goddamn action figure. Think about it, coleman, randleman, wand....looked ridiculous. Can't really knock him for taking roids as literally everyone around them was at the same time.
I think Fedor worked with Ernesto Hoost for the Cro Cop fight and it showed. Fedor put on a master class of striking, defense, timing, and nullified Cro Cop's moveset. Cro Cop had one moment, where it looked like a high kick connected and for .02 seconds phased Fedor, but that was it. An amazing fight to watch, even though at that time I was butt hurt. Truly the two best, fighting each other, at their mother fucking peaks.
 
Massive 265lb Derrick Lewis just won another fight by flying knee KO and you're trying to tell me there haven't been any evolvements in HW.

<YeahOKJen>

Won't even respond to how retarded you have to be to have included LHW in there too when Jon Jones spans that period and is the GOAT LHW by far.
Derrick Lewis landing a flying knee on a can indicates that HW has evolved? Lewis has spent a large chunk of the last 5 years ranked in the top 5. If you teleported him back to 15 years ago, he gets beat by a bunch of HWs.

And Jon Jones is an outlier; his existence doesn't indicate that the whole division has evolved. He's 1 of 1. Jamahal Hill just held the title; you think he would sniff the LHW title 15 years ago? Hell, 42-year-old Glover just had the title last year. And a very pedestrian Jan Blachowicz had the title before that.

Your post is utterly absurd.
 
Seems that nowadays anytime someone gets a headkick knockout it automatically becomes their number one highlight and knockout of the year contender.

From Joachim Buckley to Leon Edwards, to now Justin Gaethje, it seems if you can pull of a headkick knockout it becomes a career defining moment and one that most fighters are lucky to land just once in their career.

So how impressive is it when a guy’s highlight reel is filled with headkick knockouts? And not like he was surprising anyone, they all knew what to expect, not only did they know what was coming, they even knew which side it was coming from and they still fell victim to it anyway time and time again.

Hats off to the GOAT head kicker of all time, there will never be another Mirko Cro Cop.

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I'm a fan and these gifs are just reaffirming my loyalty to Cro Cop.

I remember when you would hear his name and people would just react to it. He had presence and he never had to wear pearls or hit women with his car to get attention.
 
Derrick Lewis landing a flying knee on a can indicates that HW has evolved?

So no, you don't have examples back then of dudes the size of Lewis throwing and landing flying knee KOs. Thanks.

I dunno, seems like an evolution to me.

<Neil01>
 
So no, you don't have examples back then of dudes the size of Lewis throwing and landing flying knee KOs. Thanks.

I dunno, seems like an evolution to me.

<Neil01>
Nice avoidance of every point I made. Regardless, if you think Derrick Lewis represents an evolution of the sport, you clearly don't understand what you're watching...which aligns well with the ridiculous arguments you're making. Take care.
 
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