How special was Mirko Cro Cop?

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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can't spell croatian special forces without special
 
Status is rather subjective, and depends heavily on how a fighter is promoted.
I guess you can say Aspinall or Pavlovich are as good wins as Fujita based on "status".
Fuiita got in MMA around same time than Mirko btw

If you acknowledge lesser knowledge of the sport for those generation fighters to cling into the "status" analogy, you cant claim that modern HW is inferior to 20 years ago

There are modern HWs today who truly live up to that name and there are modern HWs who don't.

Someone like Pavlovich or Aspinall are definitely modern HWs in the sense that they have well rounded skillsets and access to modern day sport science to optimize their approach to fighting.

Then you have guys like Lewis, Tuivasa and Rozenstruik and there is nothing "modern" about them at all. Their skillsets and approach to fighting are primitive and limited so there is a lot of nuance when it comes to such terms.
 
There are modern HWs today who truly live up to that name and there are modern HWs who don't.

Someone like Pavlovich or Aspinall are definitely modern HWs in the sense that they have well rounded skillsets and access to modern day sport science to optimize their approach to fighting.

Then you have guys like Lewis, Tuivasa and Rozenstruik and there is nothing "modern" about them at all. Their skillsets and approach to fighting are primitive and limited so there is a lot of nuance when it comes to such terms.

Nobody cares, if it works, it works.

Ngannou crushed all your so-called super soldiers.

Insane how people can be delusional in this forum.
 
Now Fedor was nothing special either? LOL

You’re a clown, I’m done here.

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Indeed, when a HW is litterally brutalized by a completely washed out MW, he's a fraud in my book (as far as modern MMA is concerned) <seedat>
 
There are modern HWs today who truly live up to that name and there are modern HWs who don't.

Someone like Pavlovich or Aspinall are definitely modern HWs in the sense that they have well rounded skillsets and access to modern day sport science to optimize their approach to fighting.

Then you have guys like Lewis, Tuivasa and Rozenstruik and there is nothing "modern" about them at all. Their skillsets and approach to fighting are primitive and limited so there is a lot of nuance when it comes to such terms.

There are some who rely heavier on physicality, and Lewis is underrated at that btw.

Aspinall or Pavlovich, or even Isaev vs Mowry in Bellstor recently was fairly well-rounded fight of two physical specimen, all above 250lbs
 
Crorop would run thru today's HW.

He'd break jbj chicken legs in round 1

Like he did the gatekeeper Gonzaga?
like Shogun was going to do?


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Yeah Cro-cop was a real killer in sanctioned fights....
 
Like he did the gatekeeper Gonzaga?
like Shogun was going to do?


View attachment 995482


Yeah Cro-cop was a real killer in sanctioned fights....


Just some big guy knocking out another big guy. Only difference is today's HWs are huge and Fedor Mirko are medium sized LHWs who maybe even could diet down to MW. And Big Nog is a grappler with limited striking
Werdum from that era still became ufc champ

Also did you see that Gonzaga CroCop rematch ?

Aspinal Gane Sergey are not more skilled they're just fucking big. True 6'5 250 lean guys.
 
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I just watched episode #1 of an anime called Jujutsu Kaisen, and it mentioned Mirko Cro Cop: one character said of somebody that he was a reincarnation of Mirko Cro Cop, to which another objected that Mirko was still alive.

So Mirko was special enough in Japan to just get randomly name-dropped like that in an anime.
 
Like he did the gatekeeper Gonzaga?
like Shogun was going to do?


View attachment 995482


Yeah Cro-cop was a real killer in sanctioned fights....
Somehow Shogun became champion beating undefeated Machida. Rampage beat Lidell twice. It goes both ways. Several guys in pride that Cro Cop beat were UFC champions. Shogun was ranked lhw like decade past his prime.
 
Just some big guy knocking out another but guy. Only difference is today's HWs are huge and Fedor Mirko are medium sized LHWs who maybe even could diet down to MW. And Big Nog is a grappler with limited striking
Werdum from that era still became ufc champ

Also did you see that Gonzaga CroCop rematch ?

Aspinal Gane Sergey are not more skilled they're just fucking big. True 6'5 250 lean guys.

HWs today are indeed bigger on average but to say Fedor/Mirko could diet down to 185 is pretty delusional. They were thick guys even for a LHW.
 
HWs today are indeed bigger on average but to say Fedor/Mirko could diet down to 185 is pretty delusional. They were thick guys even for a LHW.
Mirko was weighing in between 213 to 220 for some of his HW fights, he most definitely could have fought at 205, he would be impossible to take down, but he would lose some of that speed advantage…. would have been interesting to see.
 
Mirko was weighing in between 213 to 220 for some of his HW fights, he most definitely could have fought at 205, he would be impossible to take down, but he would lose some of that speed advantage…. would have been interesting to see.
As low as 213 in his MMA career?
If thats the case he was rather small even for LHW but I thought he always weighted above 220.

Would be interesting at LHW sure, but I prefered him challenging the biggest boys. He was such a badass HW
 
There are modern HWs today who truly live up to that name and there are modern HWs who don't.

Someone like Pavlovich or Aspinall are definitely modern HWs in the sense that they have well rounded skillsets and access to modern day sport science to optimize their approach to fighting.

Then you have guys like Lewis, Tuivasa and Rozenstruik and there is nothing "modern" about them at all. Their skillsets and approach to fighting are primitive and limited so there is a lot of nuance when it comes to such terms.

Aspinall I think does look to have a lot of potential but it is still rather untested, he could I think turn out to be a HW on the level of the greats but not certain yet.

Pavlovich to me still looks like a big brawler who rushes people down, it works in the current environment and he's clearly as level above someone like Tai but to me still looks pretty unrefined and again I think untested against higher level striking and grappling since losing to Reem.
 
As low as 213 in his MMA career?
If thats the case he was rather small even for LHW but I thought he always weighted above 220.

Would be interesting at LHW sure, but I prefered him challenging the biggest boys. He was such a badass HW
According to most of the accounts I have read he was around 213 to 215 when he was fighting in Wanderlei and Sakuraba. Can’t find an actual official pride weigh in statistic but that’s what the word is.

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He’s still pretty thick at 215, so it’s really easy to imagine him cutting another 10 lbs if he really wanted to. I think to him the prestige was always the heavyweight title.
 
Mirko was weighing in between 213 to 220 for some of his HW fights, he most definitely could have fought at 205, he would be impossible to take down, but he would lose some of that speed advantage…. would have been interesting to see.
According to most of the accounts I have read he was around 213 to 215 when he was fighting in Wanderlei and Sakuraba. Can’t find an actual official pride weigh in statistic but that’s what the word is.

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He’s still pretty thick at 215, so it’s really easy to imagine him cutting another 10 lbs if he really wanted to. I think to him the prestige was always the heavyweight title.

This is incorrect. By the time that he was fighting in MMA, Cro Cop was ALWAYS north of 220. Against Wanderlei at PRIDE 20, Quadros specifically states that Wand was 215 and Cro Cop was 222. For virtually his entire physical prime, Cro Cop was 225-230. The reason that the OWGP was so surprising was because, after years of being 225-230, Cro Cop actually leaned out, and against Wanderlei at Final Conflict Absolute, he was 221 and Wand had bulked up to 225. But from 2002-2006, Cro Cop never competed at less than 220 pounds.

Now, could he have made 205? Or, in PRIDE categories, 200? Sure. But would that have been better for him? I'm not so sure. We've seen plenty of fighters who actually fight better - have more power, more speed, and more endurance - when they don't cut (as much) weight. Added to which, you are right about the fact that Cro Cop never even entertained the idea of cutting weight because to him - in his not at all diplomatic, ice cold bad ass bluntness - cutting weight is for pussies.

 
Just some big guy knocking out another but guy. Only difference is today's HWs are huge and Fedor Mirko are medium sized LHWs who maybe even could diet down to MW. And Big Nog is a grappler with limited striking
Werdum from that era still became ufc champ

Also did you see that Gonzaga CroCop rematch ?

Aspinal Gane Sergey are not more skilled they're just fucking big. True 6'5 250 lean guys.
Also did you see that Gonzaga CroCop rematch ?

I did. I also saw him brutally lose to JDS, Mir, Nelson and Schaub
 
Somehow Shogun became champion beating undefeated Machida. Rampage beat Lidell twice. It goes both ways. Several guys in pride that Cro Cop beat were UFC champions. Shogun was ranked lhw like decade past his prime.
So Shoguns alleged mythical prime was at,, 19?
Before his first pro fight.

<WhatIsThis>
 
his Fedro fight still holds up, strong IMO. a lot of that has to do with the ring of course but damn, like I always get caught up into it before I even know it.
 
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