I feel proud as a Croatian i lived to watch Crocops fights live on tv with chills down my spine evry time he was about to fight,a time when every Croat was proud
This was the real coming out party for Mirko as an MMA fighter. When he really started to develop good td defense...showed you how dangerous he could be if you couldn't get him down.
@Fubazim Yes for few years, he even lived in Zagreb. Funny story Werdum said to Mirko if ever you succeed to submit me, I'm leaving. Actually it happened one day ( he choke him out), and Werdum left next day. You can check on Internet this is story from Mirko. Mirko was not even close to Werdum on the ground but in few years he was just lucky one time ,and Werdum didn't like it, and kept promise and left. Mirko said Werdum left without word to say. Nothing.
I love this format too but you can see why they changed it, a cage is much more fluid, sometimes in the ring when they are grappling on the ground and nearly falling out the ref stops the fight and orders them to the middle and they have to get up and return to their exact positions in the centre, that’s a crazy action killer
He was expending a lot of energy with some front rushes that were not going to have the desired effect on someone as experienced as Crocop. He needed to wait and explode for a takedown when Cropcop punched or kicked. A hell of a lot easier said than done.
The last knee to the head before Heath stood back up then the subsequent throw down by Cro Cop you could tell heath's patience snapped, he was pissed. But he had nothing for Mirko.
I'll up that. When Light Heavyweights coulda cared less and decided to fight at HW and dominated the division. Crocop, Fedor, and Rodrigo Nogueira all were smaller than Kevin Randleman. But they beat up Bob Sapp, Tim Sylvia, Josh Barnett, the list goes on.
Two things....(1) That was cool when Mirko offered to give Heath a hand to get up 10:10 , and (2) I wonder if Heath pissed any blood after that liver kick. *OUCH!*
In reality, at that time, Mirko didn't have good grappling/submission skills (although good takedown defense), so it benefits him to have Heath stand up to fight. Saying that, Mirko consistently showed good sportsmanship throughout his career.
@@jobiny9438 Nogeira was very lucky in first fight, Mirko almost tear his head off, than in second round Minotauro caught Mirko glove and took an arm bar!!! Minotauro didn't want to fight in rematch
🐐one of the best ever mma and k1 Mirko cro cop filipović Croatian pride worldwide ❤👊😍🤙👍🤜🤛🥊🥊💪💪🤴😘🇭🇷🇭🇷always humble and respectful uvjek vjerni always loyal budi ponosan not bad for small country
He took a few good liver kicks, but the last one was a monster shot. This fight took a few years off of Heath's life. Those shots have a cumulative effect in ones career.
Somebody is a little sossy, did CRO COP hurt you in any way, if he as gatekeeper fighter with 4 belts than who is better than him, Fedor who was waiting the right moment to fight leg injured Cro Cop, Fedor back down twice, Fedor send his brother first, than Magomedov, than when he heard Mirko has problem with his legs - he accepted the fight
After Pride, I just haven't found the sport that interesting. But to be fair, I think it might have more to do with UFC than the sport. Pride felt open, raw and with a greater respect for the base premise, which used to be that within a simple ruleset, a fighter could fight any way he wanted to try and win. That all disappeared after UFC became mainstream, and started deciding how fighters should fight to sell pay per views, in a market BTW that is considerably less concerned with the finer points of the sport than Japan. Even though money obviously was a driving factor in Pride, so was pride. There's not a lot of that going on anymore. Now it's all slick business and almost everything you see goes through a filter of manipulation.
Ya all the shit talk and “selling” the fight and social media crap doesn’t help. some buildup is ok. Oh and also the fake callouts etc. ufc used to be pretty good.
He was hurt. Took a huge liver kick earlier and didn't want to stand with a world class kickboxer. Only hope he had was to use the low kick and wear our crocops legs but crocop saw it coming and that's when the final liver kick happened. But sure. Rigged I guess
I'm on the staged bandwagon too. After the kick lands Heath took his chance to lose like he was supposed too. He kept going to the ground so he could give up a sub and go home without a concussion but since that wouldn't work he took the liver kick as an excuse to lose instead.
That's not really fair. He amassed a 28-16 professional record during those rough early days. He even fought in Vale Tudo tournaments where there were even less rules than PRIDE. I'm talking bare knuckle fighting, headbutts, even shots to the groin. No Holds Barred. In PRIDE, he just hit a wall as he couldn't get past the three heavyweight kings - Emilianenko, Cro Cop, and Rodrigo Nogueira. He did beat Chieck Kongo in the UFC, though, and that guy beat Cro Cop in a pretty dominant fashion.
@@dunnono00 You are right I didn't know all of that. I just saw several of his fights and it didn't seem like he excelled at any particular discipline or had a strong point. But you are right that record speaks for itself.
