Why was Cro Cop such a disappointment in the UFC?

Who knows.

He had a bad loss, looked shook from it, and had another disappointing performance after that (with Kongo admitting to hitting him with intentional knees to the nuts).

After that?

He was too old to make an impact. But regardless, Cro Cop continues provide brutal finishes for us to enjoy.

Here's to the king of the LHK. Right leg hospital, left leg cemetery.
 
I think CroCop is a bit of a headcase.

He never seemed comfortable fighting in the octagon. It may seem trivial, but there are major differences between fighting in a ring or in a cage. I remember CroCop saying that he made the mistake of not training in a cage. And it seems like a lot of fighters are relatively tentative in their UFC debuts. I think this explains his less-than-impressive performance against Sanchez.

And then Mirko got his head kicked off by GG and his psyche was completely broken. Mirko went from being a killer to being shockingly gun-shy for the remainder of his UFC tenure.
 
He was never the same after Gonzaga turned him into a glitched and buggy ufc video game character.
 
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1. CC was best suited in a ring.

50 boxing, 30 kickboxing and 30 MMA fights in a ring (before UFC).

After Gonzaga loss he said he underestimated the cage and elbows, after which he was already hurt. Never really adapted to it, but probably would if he was younger.

2. Bonjasky said CC started to slow down in 2005. (They often sparred in the past)

Around the age of 30, you start to lose explosiveness, which was his key advantage.

He has small reach, 73", that's even smaller than Conor's. Also, had multiple knee injuries and was almost never using kicks since.

3. UFC drug testing?

In PRIDE he was a basically a LHW, 220, 225 lbs. In UFC he started climbing to 245 iirc. didn't fail any test, but was still looking bad, even when winning.

NSAC was giving premium steroids (TRT) to many UFC fighters at the time, unfortunately CC wasn't on it.
 
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I just feel like it discredits the fighters who beat him.
They probably would have not beat him in the ring and Pride rules.
Octagon, a large round space with fence and unified rules helped them a lot. UFC is not a true measure of Cro Cop` s quality.
 
I was reading an article which had some quotes by him about his UFC career a few weeks ago, and he said that even he was unable to properly explain why he had underperformed so much. I mean, he won the 2006 OWGP (best version of him ever) literally less than 5 months before he made his UFC debut against Sanchez, and only 2 months after that he was fighting Gonzaga, a guy that hasn't exactly proven to be some world beater since that fight. Then he lost to Kongo and thst was the end of his initial UFC tenure.

Can someone (without bashing him) provide any legitimate reasons why he performed like this?
Because it was his like 200'th full combat fight?
 
He never looked comfortable to me in the octogan. He was more suited to the ring I believe.


I heard him say I couple of times in interviews that he doesn't like fighting in a cage like an animal.
 
Keep in mind the UFC was Mirko's third fight career after K-1 and Pride.
I'm sure the fire had already died at least a bit by that time.
 
And then they'll counter your argument with "Pride fighters are all roided" and "UFC fighters are squeaky clean".

Exactly, like all these guys that started losing after USADA came in was just coincidence lol. They act like Chael, Vitor, Jones, and Hendricks didn't even exist lol.
 
Cro cop had been through a lot of really tough battles by then and was passed his prime.

I think one of the things that hurt him the most though was that his style and a lot of his strategy as a stand up fighter was evolved in the squared ring. He was a pro at using the ring to his advantage and cutting off the corners. In the Octagon guys could just circle away.
 
Same fighter? He looked amazing 5 months prior lol

Against Minowa, Yoshida (sometimes HW), and Wanderlei Silva, all guys in lower weight classes. The only HW he fought in the tournament was Barnett, who he eye poked to win, and he had already beaten him twice. Before the OWGP, Cro Cop was 1-2 in his last 3.
 
Against Minowa, Yoshida (sometimes HW), and Wanderlei Silva, all guys in lower weight classes. The only HW he fought in the tournament was Barnett, who he eye poked to win, and he had already beaten him twice. Before the OWGP, Cro Cop was 1-2 in his last 3.
Loosing a split decision to Mark hunt and a UD to Fedor isn’t bad plus he was only 32 when he entered the UFC so I don’t buy into the whole out of prime thing. You would think he would train in an octagon though
 
I was reading an article which had some quotes by him about his UFC career a few weeks ago, and he said that even he was unable to properly explain why he had underperformed so much. I mean, he won the 2006 OWGP (best version of him ever) literally less than 5 months before he made his UFC debut against Sanchez, and only 2 months after that he was fighting Gonzaga, a guy that hasn't exactly proven to be some world beater since that fight. Then he lost to Kongo and thst was the end of his initial UFC tenure.

Can someone (without bashing him) provide any legitimate reasons why he performed like this?

He had knee surgery between the OWGP final and his UFC fights which took away a lot of his explosiveness.

Between MMA, boxing and K1 he'd had over 100 fights by the time he got to UFC. As a comparison Cains career was over in 16 fights.
 
We have to remember where Mirko came from, he was elevated to God like status in Japan, and he loved every minute of it, not only was he a fighter, but an actual celebrity.
Coming to the UFC, his reputation was there as being a killer, but apart from that, he didn't get the kind of respect he got in Japan, of course like any fighter in Japan, especially a successful 'gaijin' fighter, you can easily let it get to your head, and for sure he let himself think he'd be treated the same by the UFC fans, nope, didn't happen, he went for the money, plain and simple, this decline that decline, no, he was mentally checked out before he even fought in the UFC.
 
CC is a ring guy, somebody put a cage hex on his ass.
 
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