Yikes. I hope he didn’t permanently fuck up his ankle and knee when he fell. You could tell it scared the hell out of the ref. He straightened Cro Cop’s leg out in a hurry. Gonzaga’s a monster.
Huh?
UFC fight night. Mirko Cro Cop is a fearsome kicker and striker, and a heavy favorite again st Gabriel Gonzaga, who is by reputation a strict wrestler. Gonzaga connected with a massive high head kick, very much out of character for him, and punched Cro Cop’s ticket. Cro Cop collapsed so suddenly that it appeared he shattered both his knee and his ankle by falling on them. It was nasty, but he appeared to be standing up when he was interviewed. I hope he didn’t tear himself up.
Cro Cop knocked out by high kick is even more unexpected than Serra knocking out GSP. I officially have no more predictions about MMA at all.
Of course, I was reading Straight Dope threads, and listening to the fight in the background. I missed it live, and it was one helluva kick…
I think Cro Cop’s knee and ankle will be OK. (The ankle looked far worse than the knee did on replay.)
Wow.
I just watched that on YouTube. I’m not even a UFC fan, but my friends are, and they love Cro Cop.
That was pure destruction. And his leg is going to be screwed too.
Damn, son.
Shit. Somebody report this thread and ask a mod to change the title. Sorry, Western Dopers. Ignore this thread for a while! :smack:
Holy shit. A man could’ve made a killing this year betting on MMA if he fancied the 'dogs.
As stunning as it was when Randleman knocked him out, this was unreal.
That was a nice kick.
The PRIDE fans don’t seem to be surprised. A lot of them are saying that Cro Cop has always been overrated. shrug What so I know?
Was a nice fight night. As a ‘small’ insider (My brother-in-law fights MMA professionally) I know his trainers ingrain that skill is everything. But he admits when you’re at the top of your game, and your opponent is at the top of his. Then luck plays a part. Watching some of the events my BIL is in I have seen guys getting beaten down hard only to land a superman punch/head kick and KO the opponent. So underdogs they may be, but if they’re good enough to be in there, they’re good enough to win it. IMO of course.
Dammit…forgot about the fight…have to watch it later.
Agreed, and it makes for much more exciting fights. Couture seemed pretty confident that Gonzaga was going to win…but Cro Cop is such a stud (WTF?! Head of the Croatian counter-terrorism unit?) and such a spectacular kicker that I thought he’d win. He did manage to deliver a massive body kick, but Gonzaga just soaked it up.
Thanks for explaining!
And while I’m at it, what the hell was the deal with Arlovski? I thought this guy was supposed to be a raging beast. What was with the doing-nothing-but-inside-leg-kicks routine?
Mirko “Cro Cop” Flipovic was made famous by his insanely powerful left high kick, which sometimes put away his opponent when it connected with his chest. He’s that powerful. He first made his name in the kickboxing league K1. Not sure what prompted him to move to Pride, but even with limited ground ability, he was a dangerous opponent. Now he’s spent time on becoming more well-rounded, working on punches, working on the ground game, not relying only on sprawls against grapplers (which cost him at least one match).
He won his first UFC match really easy, and there was actually talk about there not being a UFC Heavweight who could stand up to him.
So, him getting decked, possibly injured as well…yes, that is big. Really big. The good news is that no one wanted to see him romp all over the Heavyweight division three times over. The bad news is that no one wanted him to get hurt, either. There’s going to be equal measures excitement and concern over the next few weeks, count on it.
Dang. Guess the last sure thing was Hughes over Gracie after all.
(What does “knocked the random-f-word out” mean, anyway? How does it differ from a normal knockout? Are there degrees to this, say, “knocked the heck out” or “knocked the hullabaloo jiggabaheezah out”? 
)
I can’t figure out what Cro Cop was thinking when he dropped his hands with that kick on the way. It looked to me like the kick was about halfway there before his hands went down and he left his head completely open and unprotected. Maybe he missed that the leg was on its way or maybe he thought it was headed lower. It just looked so damn odd.
Bisbing-Elvis was the only other fight that had anything else going for it. No drama in the other fights.
The knee didn’t look too bad, the ankle was ugly. However having seen similar bends up close and personal I’m betting it was “just” a nasty dislocation.
Either way, wow. I’m surprised they didn’t have to retrieve his head from the front row.
My head hurt for a little while after watching that kick. He was out before he started going down, so I wonder if being limp like that helped minimize damage to his leg. When they were interviewing him the only thing I could think of was “They are going to have to show him the video because he won’t remember what happened”. But yeah, I was expecting the opposite result. Damn, I bet a lot of people lost money on that one.
Oh, and Bisbing is a freaking beast.
Cro Cop will be back.
Bisping is a hell of a brawler, but I haven’t seen anything from him that indicates he’s ready to take on Liddell, Jackson or Ortiz.