Today 12yrs ago: Final Conflict Absolute/Mirko's big night

Good stuff. Cro cop looked amazing and Big Nog and Barnett had another classic. Those are some underrated fights. Also loved Sergei vs Aleks. Lots of solid fights that night.

giphy.gif
 
Nice post, thanks.

Wandy and Cro Cop fought twice, the first fight was when Wandy was on top, he fought smart and even seemed to outbox cro cop on the feet but this fight had special rules and if it went to distance it would be a draw, regardless, although wandy should have won.

The second fight, Cro Cop had mastered his TD defense and Wandy wasn't the same, the same wandy who was superior to cro cop, stomped henderson and destroyed Quinton Jackson was eventually knocked out by all three in rematches when he was a shadow of his former self.

Another thing I remember from this tournament is cro cops face of relief when he finally won something. Cro Cop is a legend and at his best he was a sight to behold but he never won a big title, wasn't pride champ, wasn't UFC champ, wasn't K1 champ before that. He still didn't win the actual belt but he won the GP, which seemed to be more than enough for him.

He eventually won K1 in 2012 but that was shit an doesn't count
 
Harry Ellis said:
Cool thread. Nothing tops a Final Conflict event. Those events were stacked to begin with, but having the semis and finals in the same night was so fuckin cool. It's a unique type of event.

Barnett/Nog is still my favorite HW fight. I still watch it probably once every year. The clash of styles was so interesting, and the fight played out perfectly, giving fight fans answers to all of their questions.

I always thought Mirko/Barnett was a bit of a disappointing matchup for the finals. I was so pumped for a rematch with Nog, and I thought Nog had narrowly beaten Barnett. Also, Mirko had already out-worked Barnett a year earlier, and he was so much fresher than Josh after a relatively easy fight with Wanderlei. Regardless, it was still a final between two of the top 5 fighters on earth. And although an injury ended the fight, Mirko had earned a victory with his performance anyway. He looked great; nothing was going to stop him.
Click to expand...
Nog x Josh 1 was pretty close...
But and i think Josh with the nod, is a good decision...
Nog got dropped...was in a leg lock attempt from Barnett and ultimatly had Nogueira screaming in the last 10seconds with a deep kneebar...which was the biggest scoring factor...
Just my take
 
Great post and thanks for reminding me that I was just starting to feel old when this event happened. I'm going to go drink now.
 
Harry Ellis said:
Cool thread. Nothing tops a Final Conflict event. Those events were stacked to begin with, but having the semis and finals in the same night was so fuckin cool. It's a unique type of event.

Barnett/Nog is still my favorite HW fight. I still watch it probably once every year. The clash of styles was so interesting, and the fight played out perfectly, giving fight fans answers to all of their questions.

I always thought Mirko/Barnett was a bit of a disappointing matchup for the finals. I was so pumped for a rematch with Nog, and I thought Nog had narrowly beaten Barnett. Also, Mirko had already out-worked Barnett a year earlier, and he was so much fresher than Josh after a relatively easy fight with Wanderlei. Regardless, it was still a final between two of the top 5 fighters on earth. And although an injury ended the fight, Mirko had earned a victory with his performance anyway. He looked great; nothing was going to stop him.
Click to expand...

Barnett was drained from Nog, but Mirko broke his foot on Wands head. His cornerman said in an interview that Mirko asked for painkiller shot in the foot, but he gave him a placebo.

He had knee and foot surgery right after that and wanted to fight Fedor or retire, but UFC offer was very lucrative so he stayed in the game waay to long.
 
Epic but also sad at the same time since I was a fan of both Mirko and Wand.
 
220lbs wrecking 250lb Barnett

Me likey

Smaller Heavyweights usually have a shorter prime though, except Handy
 
Jared's picks said:
220lbs wrecking 250lb Barnett

Me likey

Smaller Heavyweights usually have a shorter prime though, except Handy
Click to expand...

And Mirko didn't train so smart back then, stuff like "I'm hitting this wooden board covered with thin leather until my knuckels bleed" and "I'm kicking this heavy bag filled with 300 lbs of sand until i kill all my nerves on my shin" was a thing back then. He fought 11 times in 12 months in 2002/2003 period K1 and MMA combined-

And he was a HW fighting @ 220 -228 range for most of his career. Was 218 for OWGP, Wand came in @223, rampage and a lot of LHWs were bigger then him.

He considered cutting weight as something real fighters don't do. He wanted to be baddest man on the planet, not only in his division. And in one point in time he certainly was.
 
Buffmeister said:
Nog x Josh 1 was pretty close...
But and i think Josh with the nod, is a good decision...
Nog got dropped...was in a leg lock attempt from Barnett and ultimatly had Nogueira screaming in the last 10seconds with a deep kneebar...which was the biggest scoring factor...
Just my take
Click to expand...
I've seen the fight 20 times, and my opinion has changed many times. It's a true split decision, imo. But, on the night of the fight, I thought Nog won.
 
Another great trip down memory lane, TS. Thanks for posting this. There are a few fights from this event that I still watch a couple of times a year.
 
People don’t understand just how good prime Cro Cop was, Fucking monster.

Great post TS.
 
Buffmeister said:
View attachment 434437
Event: Final Conflict Absolute
Location: SaitamaSuperArena
Date: September, 10th 2006
Birthday Kid: Mirko Filipovic

This is Mirko 'CroCop' Filipovic's 32nd Birthday...so happy Birthday

Openweight Grand Finals

Mirko Cro Cop def. Josh Barnett Submission Punches 5:32

Openweight Grand Prix Semifinals

Openweight
Josh Barnett def. Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira Decision Split 5:00

Openweight
Mirko Cro Cop def. Wanderlei Silva
Head Kick 5:26

Non Tournament Bouts
Light Heavyweight
Ricardo Arona def. Alistair Overeem Submission Punches 4:28

Light Heavyweight
Maurício Rua def. Cyrille Diabate Stomps 5:29

Middleweight
Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Yoshihiro Nakao Decision Unanimous

Super Heavyweight
Ricardo Morais def. Tae Hyun Lee Corner Stoppage 8:08

Heavyweight
Aleksander Emelianenko def. Sergej Kharitonov
Punches 6:45

Middleweight
Evangelista Santos def. Yosuke Nishijima
Rear-Naked Choke 3:24

Opening Fight:
Santos x Nishijima
Chute Boxe and their endless line of scary looking dudes!
Holly shit...
And Pride had an endless line of japanese dudes, to throw them in there, against them... ;)
Santos wasted no time going Chute Boxe mode on Nishijima and ended up taking him down after his onslaught ends in the clinch.

Full mount Cyborg...Yusuke turns...Cyborg muscles in his right arm...RNC...Cyborg yells at the ref...lets go...Yuskue is completley choked out!

Semi Finals
Match1:
CroCop x Silva
View attachment 434451
But before the fight...
Wanderlei said:"I don't like CroCop at all!..he has a bad attitude! Beating him will make me very famous in Japan!"
CroCop:"Exellent fighter...but don't like him personally! He is acting like maniac outside of the ring!"

Wanderlei actually outweighing CroCop by a couple of pounds...
224/220...according to Mauro

2nd meeting between 2 of the most fearsome knockout artitsts in MMA history starts with Wanderlei going after Mirko, mostly catching air.

Just like in their Forstfächer CroCop lands a nasty kick to Wand's ribs and those swellings didn't look fun to me.
TD by Silva gets stuffed by Mirko and its time to hammerfists away for Mirko!
Starting to fucking up Wand's right eye...
Wand kicks him off and back go their feet...
BOOOM Wanderlei goes back down again, straight left by Mirko landed hard!
The Doctors are now checking out Wanderleis badly swollen eye...and that took a long time until they continued with the fight.

Crowd chants:"Silva! Silva!"
They restart with Mikro in Silva's guard...nothing happens..
But wait!!
Something happens!
Ref:" Stop!...get up!"
Yellow Card Silva!

Wanderlei gets a bit slower while he punches and Mirko see's it all comming...
View attachment 434433
BOOM...another nasty body kick by CroCop!
Silva didn't like it...
BOOM!...Highkick by CroCop drops Silva dead! He is fucking out of it!
View attachment 434435
CroCop was allready leaving the ring while Silva was still down...


2nd Semi's
BigNog x Barnett

Before the fight:
Josh:"Biggest point of my career comming up!"
According to Nog himself, he trained alot, 7 weeks and is better fighter now!
Josh:"best for Nog would be get taken out quickly...going the distance he will put a monumental hurting on this guys!...he really thinks his shit don't stink!"
Nog:"...he doesn't like me anymore, hehehehe!"

1. meeting of those guys and it was another classic added in Nog's fight lab.
A must watch as an MMA fan!

Both guys boxing each other...
Josh a little bit more mixing it up with his lowkick...and some very short clinch position allways ended up with Barnett firing a short sweet knee into Nog stomach.

Nog mixing it up head-body combo and clinch again...
They break and Barnett again with a short knee tot he body and follows up with a nasty left hook!
BOOOM drops Nog on his ass...
View attachment 434441
Familiar picture here:


Scramble by Nog from half guard and gets too position on Josh...
Works from side control...
Josh starts a scramble and back to their feet they are...

3min to go and Nog now grabs for Josh's back, while both are standing.
Roll by Barnett and this sneaky catch wrestler does what?
Living out the foot-fetish...he ties up both of Nog's leg's!
Japanese crowd does have a foot fetish too and goes nuts!
"Oooooooohhhaaaahhhhhhh!"

It wasn't the best position for Barnett to finish and Nog escapes back to side control and right away went for Barnetts arm...looking for his Armbar...
And having a very good position with like 30seconds left...!
Crowd goes nuts again
"Oooooooohhhaaaaahhh!"
Barnetts escapes round ends....

2nd round and Nog botched a TD attempt and it leaves him with Josh on top of him in his guard...
Fight cools a bit down, you might think...
Sweep from butterfly guard by Nogueira...works his way to mount just to get swept back by Josh...and the fight is back where it was the majority of the time of the Arnold round...
Josh on top, working good gnp and Nog playing his guard game...

Again...Sweep by Nog now riding Barnetts back...looses control and Josh back on top...
Barnett with a nice crossover step over Nog's guard and ends in half guard...spins for the kneebar and it is fucking deep!
View attachment 434443
Antonio screams in pain while Barnett only shows mercy as the bell rings...letting go, right away...checks on Nog of he is ok!

Fucking awesome fight...!!!!!

"Nogueira!"
Crowd screams in joy
"Josh!"
Crowd screams in joy
"Josh!"
Crowd screams even louder...must've been on of the biggest crowd reaction to a decision i've ever heard in Pride!



Aleks x Sergej

What a badass match up!
And another HW classic right here!
View attachment 434445
How did a fight between a prime Sergej (who was still hunting a title fight and a W over Aleks is allways looking good) and a prime Aleks looks like?
Fucking sweet, thats what it looks like!
Fast on their feet, no looping and swinging punches...fast,clean and hard boxing...fast spinning clinches...
Aleks bouncing with his hands down, Sergej hands up stalking forward...both guys tagging each other..

Two russian Killers duking it out...
BANG!...sweet counter drops Aleks on his back and Sergej now in full mount trying to finish but Aleks was able to hold on and keeping Sergej's output to a minimum.

Back on their feet and Aleks is recovered pretty good and both guys keep on going tagging each other with good shots...

Aleks's bouncing-around-movement and his straight punches are now landing good on Serdej.
A good straight from Aleks, leads to Sergej thinking it is a good idea to wave him in, while being rocked...just to eating another shot by Aleks that drops him!

Aleks now pounding away on Sergej.
And sneaking in some tricky knees, right into his russian fellas face!

Ref stops it and Sergej is not ok with it!
Lifting his arms and wearing a WTF face...but there was money out for him, imo.
He might habe gotten out of it, if it would have been under the unified rule set...so Aleks wouldnt have landed those knees...and would might have adjusted to a better gnp position, which could have given Sergej enough time to recover...who knows...

But i do know that this was a sweet as fight between them...


Shogun x Diabate

Shogun returned from his arm breaking performence, against Mark Coleman...like 7 months later...

Did Shogun had some staph all over his right arm?
Check it out!

And Rua did realize pretty quick, how good Diabate is on his feet...shooting in just like 30seconds in...don't fuck with Diabate in the stand up!
And decided to stomp him out later in the fight...making Cyrill tapping out.

This was the time of Shogun having injury's all over his body and the young fighter, he was 1 year ago, just really wasn't there anymore...he did recollected himself in the UFC and became the LHW Champ and had all time Classics with guys like Hendo!
Seeing him fight today is just completley different...

Alistair x Arona

Not an exciting fight...
Side Control Arona and a back take...
Overeem taps out after 3-4 punches, one caughts him on the eye and he taps out...


OWGP Final
CroCop x Barnett

3rd meeting between those 2 and final match up of the tourney...

Barnett had the harder road to the finals...?
Aleks, Hunt, Nogueira...
CroCop: Minowa, Yoshida, Silva...

...i say yes...
But this is not what matteres...its the fucking GP final!

Barnett's face was already pretty marked up from the Nogueira fight and Mirkos not so...

Staredown and ref sends the fighters back to their corners...
Crowd erupts...

Both guys kickboxing and Josh shows his hard lowkicks...
Mirko's left leg goes for Barnett's ribs and Josh catches Mirko's leg and CroCop gets his leg out and fires combos...
Josh back with some knees and looses control, falls on his back...good action so far
View attachment 434449
Ref:"Stop!..Doctor!"
CroCop got cut...right eye
No idea where it happened...lol

A bit work on the ground...

Back on the feet...again a still faced paced fight, with Barnett's face showing damage...
Short range work from Mirko and he drops Barnett with a body blow, in a 3 piece left hand combo...and work gnp on Barnett's face...

Josh's eye is turning dark blue and black and CroCop goes for the last gnp punches in this fight and tries to push Barnett's head down and accidently poking Josh in the eye.

Josh goes:"Oh, Shit!" And taps out...

Mirko Filipovic celebrates his biggest career success with emotions, tears and enjoyment!
Wins the OWGP on his 32nd Birthday!


This is his post fight interview:


"I'm not an Animal!"
View attachment 434447

Feel free to share thoughts, pics and gif's guys...
Click to expand...

Proud to have birthday on the same date
 
Jackonfire said:
Another great trip down memory lane, TS. Thanks for posting this. There are a few fights from this event that I still watch a couple of times a year.
Click to expand...
You're welcome bud...

Yes there are....but there are some i haven't...like the ones i didn't get into detail lol
 
damn still remember this event, was pretty awesome. But Crocop had the easier road to the finals
 
Buffmeister said:
View attachment 434437
Event: Final Conflict Absolute
Location: SaitamaSuperArena
Date: September, 10th 2006
Birthday Kid: Mirko Filipovic

This is Mirko 'CroCop' Filipovic's 32nd Birthday...so happy Birthday

Openweight Grand Finals

Mirko Cro Cop def. Josh Barnett Submission Punches 5:32

Openweight Grand Prix Semifinals

Openweight
Josh Barnett def. Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira Decision Split 5:00

Openweight
Mirko Cro Cop def. Wanderlei Silva
Head Kick 5:26

Non Tournament Bouts
Light Heavyweight
Ricardo Arona def. Alistair Overeem Submission Punches 4:28

Light Heavyweight
Maurício Rua def. Cyrille Diabate Stomps 5:29

Middleweight
Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Yoshihiro Nakao Decision Unanimous

Super Heavyweight
Ricardo Morais def. Tae Hyun Lee Corner Stoppage 8:08

Heavyweight
Aleksander Emelianenko def. Sergej Kharitonov
Punches 6:45

Middleweight
Evangelista Santos def. Yosuke Nishijima
Rear-Naked Choke 3:24

Opening Fight:
Santos x Nishijima
Chute Boxe and their endless line of scary looking dudes!
Holly shit...
And Pride had an endless line of japanese dudes, to throw them in there, against them... ;)
Santos wasted no time going Chute Boxe mode on Nishijima and ended up taking him down after his onslaught ends in the clinch.

Full mount Cyborg...Yusuke turns...Cyborg muscles in his right arm...RNC...Cyborg yells at the ref...lets go...Yuskue is completley choked out!

Semi Finals
Match1:
CroCop x Silva
View attachment 434451
But before the fight...
Wanderlei said:"I don't like CroCop at all!..he has a bad attitude! Beating him will make me very famous in Japan!"
CroCop:"Exellent fighter...but don't like him personally! He is acting like maniac outside of the ring!"

Wanderlei actually outweighing CroCop by a couple of pounds...
224/220...according to Mauro

2nd meeting between 2 of the most fearsome knockout artitsts in MMA history starts with Wanderlei going after Mirko, mostly catching air.

Just like in their Forstfächer CroCop lands a nasty kick to Wand's ribs and those swellings didn't look fun to me.
TD by Silva gets stuffed by Mirko and its time to hammerfists away for Mirko!
Starting to fucking up Wand's right eye...
Wand kicks him off and back go their feet...
BOOOM Wanderlei goes back down again, straight left by Mirko landed hard!
The Doctors are now checking out Wanderleis badly swollen eye...and that took a long time until they continued with the fight.

Crowd chants:"Silva! Silva!"
They restart with Mikro in Silva's guard...nothing happens..
But wait!!
Something happens!
Ref:" Stop!...get up!"
Yellow Card Silva!

Wanderlei gets a bit slower while he punches and Mirko see's it all comming...
View attachment 434433
BOOM...another nasty body kick by CroCop!
Silva didn't like it...
BOOM!...Highkick by CroCop drops Silva dead! He is fucking out of it!
View attachment 434435
CroCop was allready leaving the ring while Silva was still down...


2nd Semi's
BigNog x Barnett

Before the fight:
Josh:"Biggest point of my career comming up!"
According to Nog himself, he trained alot, 7 weeks and is better fighter now!
Josh:"best for Nog would be get taken out quickly...going the distance he will put a monumental hurting on this guys!...he really thinks his shit don't stink!"
Nog:"...he doesn't like me anymore, hehehehe!"

1. meeting of those guys and it was another classic added in Nog's fight lab.
A must watch as an MMA fan!

Both guys boxing each other...
Josh a little bit more mixing it up with his lowkick...and some very short clinch position allways ended up with Barnett firing a short sweet knee into Nog stomach.

Nog mixing it up head-body combo and clinch again...
They break and Barnett again with a short knee tot he body and follows up with a nasty left hook!
BOOOM drops Nog on his ass...
View attachment 434441
Familiar picture here:


Scramble by Nog from half guard and gets too position on Josh...
Works from side control...
Josh starts a scramble and back to their feet they are...

3min to go and Nog now grabs for Josh's back, while both are standing.
Roll by Barnett and this sneaky catch wrestler does what?
Living out the foot-fetish...he ties up both of Nog's leg's!
Japanese crowd does have a foot fetish too and goes nuts!
"Oooooooohhhaaaahhhhhhh!"

It wasn't the best position for Barnett to finish and Nog escapes back to side control and right away went for Barnetts arm...looking for his Armbar...
And having a very good position with like 30seconds left...!
Crowd goes nuts again
"Oooooooohhhaaaaahhh!"
Barnetts escapes round ends....

2nd round and Nog botched a TD attempt and it leaves him with Josh on top of him in his guard...
Fight cools a bit down, you might think...
Sweep from butterfly guard by Nogueira...works his way to mount just to get swept back by Josh...and the fight is back where it was the majority of the time of the Arnold round...
Josh on top, working good gnp and Nog playing his guard game...

Again...Sweep by Nog now riding Barnetts back...looses control and Josh back on top...
Barnett with a nice crossover step over Nog's guard and ends in half guard...spins for the kneebar and it is fucking deep!
View attachment 434443
Antonio screams in pain while Barnett only shows mercy as the bell rings...letting go, right away...checks on Nog of he is ok!

Fucking awesome fight...!!!!!

"Nogueira!"
Crowd screams in joy
"Josh!"
Crowd screams in joy
"Josh!"
Crowd screams even louder...must've been on of the biggest crowd reaction to a decision i've ever heard in Pride!



Aleks x Sergej

What a badass match up!
And another HW classic right here!
View attachment 434445
How did a fight between a prime Sergej (who was still hunting a title fight and a W over Aleks is allways looking good) and a prime Aleks looks like?
Fucking sweet, thats what it looks like!
Fast on their feet, no looping and swinging punches...fast,clean and hard boxing...fast spinning clinches...
Aleks bouncing with his hands down, Sergej hands up stalking forward...both guys tagging each other..

Two russian Killers duking it out...
BANG!...sweet counter drops Aleks on his back and Sergej now in full mount trying to finish but Aleks was able to hold on and keeping Sergej's output to a minimum.

Back on their feet and Aleks is recovered pretty good and both guys keep on going tagging each other with good shots...

Aleks's bouncing-around-movement and his straight punches are now landing good on Serdej.
A good straight from Aleks, leads to Sergej thinking it is a good idea to wave him in, while being rocked...just to eating another shot by Aleks that drops him!

Aleks now pounding away on Sergej.
And sneaking in some tricky knees, right into his russian fellas face!

Ref stops it and Sergej is not ok with it!
Lifting his arms and wearing a WTF face...but there was money out for him, imo.
He might habe gotten out of it, if it would have been under the unified rule set...so Aleks wouldnt have landed those knees...and would might have adjusted to a better gnp position, which could have given Sergej enough time to recover...who knows...

But i do know that this was a sweet as fight between them...


Shogun x Diabate

Shogun returned from his arm breaking performence, against Mark Coleman...like 7 months later...

Did Shogun had some staph all over his right arm?
Check it out!

And Rua did realize pretty quick, how good Diabate is on his feet...shooting in just like 30seconds in...don't fuck with Diabate in the stand up!
And decided to stomp him out later in the fight...making Cyrill tapping out.

This was the time of Shogun having injury's all over his body and the young fighter, he was 1 year ago, just really wasn't there anymore...he did recollected himself in the UFC and became the LHW Champ and had all time Classics with guys like Hendo!
Seeing him fight today is just completley different...

Alistair x Arona

Not an exciting fight...
Side Control Arona and a back take...
Overeem taps out after 3-4 punches, one caughts him on the eye and he taps out...


OWGP Final
CroCop x Barnett

3rd meeting between those 2 and final match up of the tourney...

Barnett had the harder road to the finals...?
Aleks, Hunt, Nogueira...
CroCop: Minowa, Yoshida, Silva...

...i say yes...
But this is not what matteres...its the fucking GP final!

Barnett's face was already pretty marked up from the Nogueira fight and Mirkos not so...

Staredown and ref sends the fighters back to their corners...
Crowd erupts...

Both guys kickboxing and Josh shows his hard lowkicks...
Mirko's left leg goes for Barnett's ribs and Josh catches Mirko's leg and CroCop gets his leg out and fires combos...
Josh back with some knees and looses control, falls on his back...good action so far
View attachment 434449
Ref:"Stop!..Doctor!"
CroCop got cut...right eye
No idea where it happened...lol

A bit work on the ground...

Back on the feet...again a still faced paced fight, with Barnett's face showing damage...
Short range work from Mirko and he drops Barnett with a body blow, in a 3 piece left hand combo...and work gnp on Barnett's face...

Josh's eye is turning dark blue and black and CroCop goes for the last gnp punches in this fight and tries to push Barnett's head down and accidently poking Josh in the eye.

Josh goes:"Oh, Shit!" And taps out...

Mirko Filipovic celebrates his biggest career success with emotions, tears and enjoyment!
Wins the OWGP on his 32nd Birthday!


This is his post fight interview:


"I'm not an Animal!"
View attachment 434447

Feel free to share thoughts, pics and gif's guys...
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting and reminding me how great Pride GP's were. I remember ordering it on PPV. Pride was awesome
 
Mirko has the easiest path of anyone in that tournament
 
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