I watched all of Crocop's fights in chronological order in the last 2 weeks...

[Bokelj]

Why do you read that as simply a post that is "discrediting" him? It's discussing the reality of how his career played out. Cro cop has nothing to be ashamed of, and you shouldn't be ashamed on his behalf. He took some bad losses in his last few years due to aging and a step up in competition. You can still feel honored to have watched him fight every step of the way, he was a warrior and a baddass and exemplifies the sport. Don't take it so personal, I don't think TS meant much if any disrespect toward the guy.

There is nothing to be ashamed indeed, he was a pioneer and a great ambassador for the sport. But it is impossible to compare 10 years ago and now, people constantly do. The heavyweight division was like that, and as it was he did great.

If you compare 10 years ago you need to take the sport development with it. If CC fought in this time and age would he be like Dos Santos? If Cain started fighting 15 years ago, how would he develop, would he be the specimen he is now? All of these variables we have no insight in. Posts like TS's are cool but point out something that has not been talked about thousands of times already, bring something new to the table.

 

[HHJ]

the fight with igor has nothing to do with well roundedness,it was a standup fight the whole way,and someone had to go down,it was a dangerous fight for mirko too,make no question. Cro cop happened to have the great equalizer,that brilliant kick,and found an opening.


crocop fought very well when he was put up against top competition in pride. His striking skills and physical gifts were just deadly for anyone at the time. As mma evolved it became harder for him to stay dominant,but obviously he was MENTALLY affected if you go by what happened in the cheik kongo fight (according to big john,and this is audible on the video is he asked BJM if he really had it in him anymore,in the MIDDLE of the fight) So theres alot going on there than usual. If you combine his kickboxing career hes probably had over 70 fights. somethings got to give.

 

[farrella]

...and here is what I think:
A lot of people always asked why Crocop couldn't be as successful in the UFC as he was in Pride. I have my own opinion about this subject now that I watched all of his fights.
- First of all, yes, Age plays an important role. Crocop had a lot of fights (Both Pride and K-1) under his belt before he ever fought in the UFC. I noticed that he had repeatedly eye problems in UFC fights (Swelling or blinking).

- What is also a very important point is competition. In Pride Crocop fought a lot of Japanese fighters who were physically smaller than himself and who were not well rounded fighters. Some of them may have had the same weight as him, but not made all out of muscle. And some were simply way below 200 pounds and looked like blown up middleweights or even welterweights. Then some of those Japanese fighters were not well rounded and came e.g. with a Gi into the ring and all they really were good at is Judo, which won't help you that much against Crocop. No disrespect to those Japanese fighters, they all had a big heart and in Pride those matchups happened all the time in which a fighter has a huge size advantage.

So - if Crocop would have fought guys like Junior dos Santos or Cheick Kongo in Pride, then his record would in my humble opinion look different. And here is my point: in Pride Crocop never fought bigger guys who were well rounded with a few exceptions (Josh Barnett or Aleksander Emelianenko). Prime Crocop in Pride weighed 213 pounds, meaning in the UFC he could have probably fought at Light Heavyweight by cutting 8 pounds.

In the UFC Crocop weighed around 230 pounds and fights guys who are over 240 pounds of pure muscle while he himself basically was 213 pounds of pure muscle in Pride.
In his 2nd run in the UFC, Crocop clearly wasn't the same fighter he was in Pride - the Mir fight clearly shows this. In the first run he was in my opinion still close to his prime (although he had a lot of wars in Pride and K 1), but here is my point again: he fought guys like Cheick Kongo and Gonzaga. Now if you look at the guys he fought in Pride, then 90 % of those guys are 1.)- not as well rounded as Kongo and Gonzaga and 2.) not as big as those 2 guys. And I do know that Gonzaga and Kongo themselves are not the most well rounded fighters, but compared to the Pride competition, they are "very well rounded".

And as for Crocop beating Igor Vovchanchyn: Igor is a legend just like Crocop but then again, he is a pretty small, short and one dimensional striker himself. Meaning if you let Igor fight the same guys Crocop fought in the UFC, in my humble opinion he would lose most of those fights. That doesn't diminish the legacy of guys like Crocop and Igor because they built this sport. I would never say "Joe Louis is a bum because Tyson would beat him". Tyson could only become Tyson because there was a Joe Louis earlier and Joe Louis could only become Joe Louis because there was a Jack Johnson earlier.

Good concise well thought out points, agree for the most part. Appreciate the thread and insight.

 

[Bokelj]

The fact is, guys like JDS and Cain DIDN'T exist back when Cro Cop was in his prime. You can make the argument that he fought lesser competition than guys today but how is that fair? The sport was new, people were still learning and he stood out from the pack as a guy that was better than most.

If you saw Cro Cop at his peak, he was an absolute monster physically, had great killer instinct and was incredibly focused. I have no doubt that if he was an up and comer in 2013, he would be one of the elites. His training would be totally different now than it would be then. He would be training MMA, not kickboxing with some TDD.

Exactly, you can make the case he was fighting smaller competition but hell, if there were bigger people he'd fight em.

He was one of the first pure kickboksers to fight a grappler and had the best TDD for a good 6-7 years

 

[supark]

By the way, after watching all of Crocop's MMA fights, I have to say the 2 most perfect fights he ever fought were in my opinion his fight against Mark Coleman and his 2nd fight with Wanderlei Silva.

 

[KantoTerror]

Downhill syndrome? If Kongo fought CC during his prime...CC could've rearranged Kongo's face into Shadface...and there would've been Shadface before Rashad....

 

[BuffaloEmperor]

imo this what happened to cro cop:
1.) the cage, cro cop fought in the ring his whole career and its easier to cut people off in a ring and un load on them. theres no "wall n stall" or w/e.
2.) age- cro cop was in alot of battles in his K1 career, then came to Pride and went threw more battles. fedor and randleman especially before even getting brutally KO'ed by gonzaga
3.) cro cop as already well off before signing to UFC, lack of motivation once he was wealthy and especially after gonzaga KO'ed him that had to be demoralizing.
i truly believe this last part: if prime cro cop , prime fedor, and prime big nog fought now a days they would still be extremely successful doesn't matter what organization they fought in. People dis-credit what these men did in Pride , b/c of failure in america but fail to realise that they weren't in there Prime anymore.

 

[Bob Sapp Junior]

I agree 100 % with what you said. Crocop fought the best of his time and looked great doing so.

Haha so you agree 100% with this:

You can make the argument that he fought lesser competition than guys today but how is that fair?

And yet still post nonsense like this:

So - if Crocop would have fought guys like Junior dos Santos or Cheick Kongo in Pride, then his record would in my humble opinion look different.

 

[supark]

Haha so you agree 100% with this:


And yet still post nonsense like this:

You didn't make a point. I just said what I think. I said I agree Crocop fought the best in his prime (which was in Pride) and he looked great against that Competition. I didn't discredit Crocop by saying what I said. But I understand that you basically can interpret whatever you want into someone's post depending on lots of different things.
I did not say anything bad about Crocop, I just said how I saw his great career. He is one of the best who ever fought in MMA.

 

[HHJ]

too easy to say this,as if someone is making an incredibly observation
fighter who started his fighting career in 1996 would get beat by fighter who started his career in 2005.

yeah no shit

 

[RJ43]

Meh. I fully believe that a Prime Cro Cop would have shit canned a prime JDS. Maybe I'm wrong and JDS wins, but I remember when Cro Cop was FAST and brutal with his strikes. He had arguably the best straight punch in MMA and no doubt the most lethal kicks. He was a different fighter.

The guy had 27 MMA fights and around 23 K1 fights by the time he came to the UFC...and he was 32 years old.

Cro Cop should have done better in the UFC, no doubt about that, but there is no doubt that he was physically and mentally shot with his fights in the UFC.

My personal belief is that he was done with fighting in 2006 but agreed to fight in Final Conflict to avenge his loss to Fedor and take the pay. Once Fedor hurt his hand and Nog lost to Barnett Cro Cop had an easy road to the championship and it made him look like a beast, but he was already on his physical decline. I think after that point he was done with fighting but just couldn't turn down the cash.

 

[Chi-City]

Many people believed that because Cro-Cop was the third best HW in pride that he was the third best HW in the world such was not the case.

 

[SavageAngel]

This sums it up pretty well!

"Tyson could only become Tyson because there was a Joe Louis earlier and Joe Louis could only become Joe Louis because there was a Jack Johnson earlier."

People will always be better nowadays. But comparing Jones to Liddell would be a travesty. Because guys paved the way for better competition. Royce Gracie paved the way for fighters to get smart on the mat. Coleman paved the way for fighters to avoid GnP, etc..

 

[ali2013champ]

imo this what happened to cro cop:
1.) the cage, cro cop fought in the ring his whole career and its easier to cut people off in a ring and un load on them. theres no "wall n stall" or w/e.
2.) age- cro cop was in alot of battles in his K1 career, then came to Pride and went threw more battles. fedor and randleman especially before even getting brutally KO'ed by gonzaga
3.) cro cop as already well off before signing to UFC, lack of motivation once he was wealthy and especially after gonzaga KO'ed him that had to be demoralizing.
i truly believe this last part: if prime cro cop , prime fedor, and prime big nog fought now a days they would still be extremely successful doesn't matter what organization they fought in. People dis-credit what these men did in Pride , b/c of failure in america but fail to realise that they weren't in there Prime anymore.

you forgot about injures bro he had few knee surgeries ,he had back injures he had eye injures ,rib injures,shoulder injures, biceps injures, ankle injures. dude is walking injury, oh not mentioned balls injury

 

[Shonuff1980**]

Different era. It was a time when styles were still distinct and you didn't have "MMA" fighters. Cro Cop crossing over from kickboxing and doing as well as he did was a rare thing.

He was a great fighter, special for his time and unique. I hate people trying to discredit the guy's career just because he didn't do well in the UFC at the end of his career.

It's like taking any famous athlete in any other sport and then saying they wouldn't be good if they played with today's players. That's just not fair.

Exactly^^. TS doesn't account for many things that are obvious to those who've followed the sport or care to account for everything. Prime Cro Cop was a BEAST, the end. He has over 100+ fights between boxing/kickboxing/MMA. He spoke of retirement after the GP win. His UFC 'run' was the end of his career, after so many fights. Add to that his style is better suited for the ring, not a cage. It's easier for a striker to use angles in a ring, cut off an opponent, corner and strike, where as in the cage, their opponent can circle away. So between mileage, age, style, he was at the end, but at his best, was and always will be one of the best. WAR MIRKO.

 

[TeamSpaceMonkey]

If Cro Cop stared his career today as a young man, he would have probably competed at LHW. I think he would have done well too. Wouldn't beat Jones imo though.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

Even current Cro Cop is still a beast in the gym today and was more insane in his prime. I have no doubt he would be a GSP-level fighter if he was starting out in the UFC today. There are certain guys that just have that extra drive and are elite athletes and Mirko was one of those guys.

The injuries and number of fights caught up with him. He wanted to retire prior to winning the PRIDE OWGP due to injuries and losing the desire to compete. He gave it one more go and won the OGWP. That was supposed to be it for him but then the UFC came calling and he couldn't turn down their offer.

For his legacy, if Mirko would have retired after the OWGP, we wouldn't have threads like this questioning his legacy. For better or for worse, the UFC hurt Mirko's legacy but also made him a rich man and is allowing him and his family to live a quality life.

 

[BuffaloEmperor]

you forgot about injures bro he had few knee surgeries ,he had back injures he had eye injures ,rib injures,shoulder injures, biceps injures, ankle injures. dude is walking injury, oh not mentioned balls injury

very true.

 

[Prex32]

cc was solid in pride
but he was not the same in the ufc

 

[BambooWater]

Ring to cage transitions were rough on all pride vets who were primarily strikers.
More space for opponents to avoid shots and make angles.
The cage helps wrestlers more than anyone.