Rewatch Throwback Friday - Fedor Vs Crocop With Entrance

That was such an exciting time, I remember how much buzz and excitement I had for that fight and I really liked both guys. Such a great fight, the speed and skill of them both was incredible... look how fast they are compared to 2024 UFC HWs, the speed is on another universe, Fedor's hand speed is like a top level WW fighter, and the way they both moved, just so much faster and skilled than the new modern sluggish flat footed stuff we get today

That was the best time in MMA, so much going on and so many amazing matchups in Pride, UFC and WEC, even King of the Cage was really fun at that time as well. Best era
 
Both are massively overrated frauds subsequently exposed in the US
 
Greyscale said:
Both are massively overrated frauds subsequently exposed in the US
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GOAT MMA fight. Mma was really mainstream at that time. I was a student and I was working in a bar at the time. Everybody was talking about this fight (before and after). EVERYBODY. Those were great times to be an mma fan.
 
HI SCOTT NEWMAN said:
That was such an exciting time, I remember how much buzz and excitement I had for that fight and I really liked both guys. Such a great fight, the speed and skill of them both was incredible... look how fast they are compared to 2024 UFC HWs, the speed is on another universe, Fedor's hand speed is like a top level WW fighter, and the way they both moved, just so much faster and skilled than the new modern sluggish flat footed stuff we get today

That was the best time in MMA, so much going on and so many amazing matchups in Pride, UFC and WEC, even King of the Cage was really fun at that time as well. Best era
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I started watching mma right around the first season of TUF, but I didn't like or watch TUF. I remember watching APEX events shown late night on cable TV. I saw Jon Fitch vs Jeff Joslin and Ivan menjivar vs Ryan Ackerman and I was absolutely hooked. That led me to discovering sherdog, which led me yo discovering pride.

I remember spending many hours just crawling through fight finder. Reading up on new fighters and marveling, trying to find any scrap of video I could online. Back then, it wasn't easy. There wasn't much out there. Wamrage highlight videos were magical, treasured things.

I vividly recall starting to lurk on sherdog back then and seeing a user who's av was a picture of fedors face after his fight with mirko, and it said "artwork by crocop." I had no idea what it meant but eventually caught on to the legend of fedor, and of big nog, too.

I somehow found a way to watch fedor vs crocop and almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. They didn't look human. They were so powerful and quick, it was like watching grizzly bears with precise technique.

And watching it again decades later, it's still incredible. You're right. That was the golden era of mma. Partly because there was still such a range of specializations. You had cro cop, the surgical kickboxer and also big nog, who would certainly strangle anybody with enough time. Seeing the contrast of styles back then was way more exciting.

Also, the production value of pride was just so much more sophisticated and cultured. The ufc production where there's constantly some testosterone-addled bald guy screaming in your ear while rock guitars shred just doesn't do it for me. Bring back the respectful and contemplative Quadros style commentary and the calm and appreciative japanese crowd!
 
Stump said:
I started watching mma right around the first season of TUF, but I didn't like or watch TUF. I remember watching APEX events shown late night on cable TV. I saw Jon Fitch vs Jeff Joslin and Ivan menjivar vs Ryan Ackerman and I was absolutely hooked. That led me to discovering sherdog, which led me yo discovering pride.

I remember spending many hours just crawling through fight finder. Reading up on new fighters and marveling, trying to find any scrap of video I could online. Back then, it wasn't easy. There wasn't much out there. Wamrage highlight videos were magical, treasured things.

I vividly recall starting to lurk on sherdog back then and seeing a user who's av was a picture of fedors face after his fight with mirko, and it said "artwork by crocop." I had no idea what it meant but eventually caught on to the legend of fedor, and of big nog, too.

I somehow found a way to watch fedor vs crocop and almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. They didn't look human. They were so powerful and quick, it was like watching grizzly bears with precise technique.

And watching it again decades later, it's still incredible. You're right. That was the golden era of mma. Partly because there was still such a range of specializations. You had cro cop, the surgical kickboxer and also big nog, who would certainly strangle anybody with enough time. Seeing the contrast of styles back then was way more exciting.

Also, the production value of pride was just so much more sophisticated and cultured. The ufc production where there's constantly some testosterone-addled bald guy screaming in your ear while rock guitars shred just doesn't do it for me. Bring back the respectful and contemplative Quadros style commentary and the calm and appreciative japanese crowd!
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Such a great post, totally agree with everything you said, I feel the same. Such great memories!!!. That era in MMA was so much fun, lots of great MMA Orgs and I loved that the events were spaced apart, like UFC PPV was every 2 months and Pride was every 2-4 months, that builds all the excitement and hype, thats how you really build that buzz factor. Today there is a UFC Apex event every week it seems, its way too much, too much going in and everything just gets lost, no way to build that hype and buzz that you really need, also it means much more mediocre fighters now because they have to fill the billion cards they keep doing.

I remember the first time I saw Fedor fight was when he was fighting Kerry Schall in Rings, who later fought in UFC, anyways when I saw him I thought who is this chubby guy, he looked nervous + not in good shape... LMAO little did I know, he just smashed and tapped Schall so quickly and easily and I couldn't believe how fast he was, he was at lightning speed, I was so impressed. The phrase "never judge a book by its cover" comes to mind.

Yeah I also remember always going through sherdog fight finder lol and I used to make lots of complaints because there are fights missing on there haha, but most have been corrected over time. I used to try and buy as many MMA VHS and DVDs at that time as well, I had many UFC VHS and DVDs and Pride DVDs and some Cage Rage DVDs.. and King of the Cage boxset DVDs. That was one of the best ways to view everything back then. Great memories brother, such an amazing time!!!!!
 
Stump said:
I started watching mma right around the first season of TUF, but I didn't like or watch TUF. I remember watching APEX events shown late night on cable TV. I saw Jon Fitch vs Jeff Joslin and Ivan menjivar vs Ryan Ackerman and I was absolutely hooked. That led me to discovering sherdog, which led me yo discovering pride.

....

I somehow found a way to watch fedor vs crocop and almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. They didn't look human. They were so powerful and quick, it was like watching grizzly bears with precise technique.

And watching it again decades later, it's still incredible. You're right. That was the golden era of mma. Partly because there was still such a range of specializations. You had cro cop, the surgical kickboxer and also big nog, who would certainly strangle anybody with enough time. Seeing the contrast of styles back then was way more exciting.

.....
Click to expand...
Great post, and I agree - that era will be looked back as the golden era of a rapidly-maturing sport, perhaps similar to how the 1920s-30s of boxing is viewed by historians as the fastest ascent from fringe to mainstream popularity in the sport's history, moving from banned or underground to recognized sanctioning and popular acceptance.

Footage was so difficult to find back then, which was part of the allure - the hunt for good fight footage - and this was before Youtube and there were only a few nascent online video streaming or repository sites. Often downloads from torrents or other P2P methods. Sherdog used to have gems of compilations like Hayato Sakurai that even in 240p looked otherworldly.

Finding old K-1 footage of Cro Cop over twenty years ago on a dial-up modem was my window into fights beyond the UFC and that's what hooked me. Slower dissemination of news meant you could watch fights that happened the month prior and still not know of the outcome. Less people who followed the sport I think made the community closer. Nothing wrong with casuals, but if somebody was following cards back then, you knew you were speaking with an enthusiast that could match your appreciation of the sport. Plus an asymmetry of knowledge meant techniques were siloed - the blending of discrete martial arts into a generic MMA may have evolved the sport as a whole, but I think eroded the mystique and intrigue of matches. "Styles make fights" holds true. Plus as the documentary "Fighting in the Age of Loneliness" astutely pointed out, the consolidation of organizations, rulesets, sponsors, etc. has blunted the unique personalities of fighters, siphoned money away from fighters to a select few owners and coupled with an overabundance of events, greatly reduced the "must-watch" factor for fans.

I'd argue by catering to mass-appeal audiences, and decisions to merge with WWE to form a multi-billion publicly traded company, etc., has led to the alienation of their earlier fans (consumer-base?) and will long-term lead to a stagnation and perhaps decline in interest in the sport itself. TKO Group Holdings Inc, has created a larger addressable market of fans, but each average fan participation is now reduced to a surface, cursory level. The owners will not care, as this has no doubt been analyzed to be more short-term profitable.

It's an interesting consideration roughly 30 years on from the first burst of MMA with Semaphore's UFC 1 - what if TUF hadn't aired? Would the UFC have fizzled, and how would the landscape of martial arts look today without the TUF boom? Dream Stage Entertainment's entanglement with the Yakuza and PRIDE FC's downfall would have still occurred independently of UFC. Without the lightning in the bottle of TUF, it's possible this sport would have remained in the dark ages of post-NHB, pre-TUF. I don't think this is a better scenario, but it's certainly a different sport.

Also back to your post, Fitch-Joslin is an all-time robbery of a decision (link to fight). I've never understood a) why Fitch wasn't deducted for a headbutt and b) the ref granting Fitch an injury time-out because he got rocked. Probably for the best - I understand Joslin has gone on to become a very well-respected and successful BJJ gym owner in Canada. There's a whole life after fighting. Thanks for reading.
 
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Pretty sure this is the first time I saw both guys. Around that time I was hyping up UFC at work and this kid was saying how this was so much better and that I had to check out these two "crazy Russian" dudes and lent me his DVD to watch it.
 
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Man I remember following both guys careers and hoping they would fight each other. The anticipation for this match was through the roof. Both guys in their absolute prime. What a great time to be an MMA fan.

And to think, back then I thought it would always be like that. Man I wish I appreciated it more at the time.
 
Fedorgasm said:
And to think, back then I thought it would always be like that. Man I wish I appreciated it more at the time.
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Same. About five years ago I chalked this feeling up to the charms of nostalgia.

But now, as I referenced in my response earlier in this thread, there are at least 3 specific, intentional causes for why older MMA fans I believe reflect fondly on the earlier times - the current pitfalls of the sport today were primarily driven by Zuffa dressing up their business to sell to the private-equity shop KKR, Michael Dell's family office and the rest of WME-IMG for billions in 2016, who then further financially engineered their way to the WWE-merger and subsequent IPO listing as TKO Group.

Cause #1. TV deals with specific fight calendars shifted the risk from the promoters carefully looking to put together the best PPV cards to generate revenue to instead bloating their roster to ensure enough fights can fill out the high frequency of cards. The promoter removes the risk and gets paid on the terms of the TV deal regardless of quality. We as fans recognize it as watered-down content.

Cause #2. Consolidation of organizations (WEC, Strikeforce, Pride, etc.) leads to monopolistic business practices and increased bargaining/bullying power during contract negotiations. Fighters have less power, and cannot (refuse?) to unionize. Of all the key items Zuffa wished to achieve to become a mainstream sport - drug-testing, standard uniforms, making the promotion/league bigger than the player, network TV deals and the money they provide, etc. there was one distinct difference that the UFC does not, and has never wanted to share in common with football, baseball and basketball - no union. Without adequate collective bargaining, the UFC's revenue share is not 50-50 like other mainstream sports. That revenue money is clearly there, you can read the SEC filings and 10-K reports of TKO Group Holdings Inc. - the entire entity made over $850M in revenue in the past three months, and the subsidiary known as "TKO OpCo" is formerly known as Zuffa LLC and is responsible for almost $400M in revenue, just between April and June of this year. How does that updated $375M class-action settlement offer look in comparison? TKO will make the cash back in less than 90 days at this rate.

Cause #3. At the end of the day, old Sherdog users like me see themselves as fans of a sport, and owners see us fans as consumers that are used to make their business money. When WME-IMG (later "Endeavor") purchased Zuffa they took out a $2.7 billion dollar loan underwritten by Goldman Sachs. The covenants of servicing that debt is of more importance to the biggest promoter of this sport than setting up a good PPV.

I write all this to show that for the years of Dana White driving the hype train to trumpet MMA as the fastest growing sport of the 21st century, and we as fans thought that meant Cro Cop vs Fedor might be the standard of excellence going forward. But it's not about putting together what's good for the sport - it's about what makes shareholders of the sport the maximum amount of money.

Remember this? Already over ten years ago.
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Their goals were never aligned with fans. Cro Cop vs. Fedor was just a beautiful moment where the intersection of what was best for MMA as a sport for fans and fighters was lining up with what was best for the growth of the owners and promoters of the sport.

Almost 20 years after this fight, and the divergence between those two groups is here. Hope you all enjoyed this month's UFC 306: Saudi Arabia Blood Money Proudly Presents Free Cash Flow.
 
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