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You're posts are very insightful bro, you have a lot of knowledge.

The idea Mirko was easy to hustle I think it one of the most often repeated but wrong things in MMA history, Fedor did it via exellent defence, Hunt did it via chin with Mirko IMHO rather off form but everyone else who tried it(Wand, Igor, Aleks, Herring) got destroyed.
I will say, though Patient Ngannou is a better fighter, that approach will probably do worse vs Crocop than just going in.
I think that these two ideas go together: You're not guaranteed to win if you do pressure Cro Cop, that's certainly a fallacy contradicted by his actual record against fighters who tried to do that in both K-1 and MMA, but you're all but guaranteed to lose if you don't pressure him. Fedor obviously had the benefit of being Fedor, but what specifically he used to keep Cro Cop at bay was the big right hand. Almost every time Cro Cop committed to any offense, Fedor fired off a big counter right hand. Just making sure he kept it out there kept Cro Cop's guard up and had him thinking defense. If Ngannou was active with his hands and didn't just circle or paw with jabs but threw out that big right the same way, he could keep Cro Cop away and maybe make him wary of attacking, which could buy him time to measure Cro Cop and find a home for that punch. The danger would be swinging too wild and getting hit with counter punches, as Cro Cop's reflexes were scary fast and his left hand was laser-sighted. As he aged and as injuries piled up, he slowed down and got hit a lot more, but in his prime, Cro Cop looked like he was in the Matrix before Anderson ever got there.
Would prefer to see this fight in K-1 tbh.
I'm Croatian and saying Francis.
But in K1 I give the edge to Mirko.
Going from MMA to K-1 would change things quite a bit. Without even the possibility of Ngannou using his wrestling, and with the bigger gloves to protect more of his chin, Cro Cop would be able to dial in all the more on his offense.