Line of the night, when Cropcop is making his entrance: “That is the most dangerous man you’ll ever see walking out to Duran-Duran music.” -Joe Rogan
– unless of course, Fedor decides “Rio” is going to be his new theme.
Reading a bit on the history of Pride/K1/UFC (which I was not very familiar with…I have always been a fan of boxing, and UFC currently has me entranced because of its easy cable access these days, but I’m largely ignorant of other organizations/leagues/etc.), the Pride fans seem convinced that the UFC is weak, and that Cro Cop moving over would expose the UFC as largely a fraud. Now, it seems that half the Pride fans are in complete denial of his KO as a fluke…and the other half are nowsaying that Cro Cop wasn’t ever really as good as everyone was saying.
The sounds of backpedalling are deafening.
Can anyone fill me in on the rivalry/bad blood there?
There are plenty of reasons for rivalry between the two organizations. The most obvious is that PRIDE is based in Japan and UFC in the USA. Plenty of fighters have crossed back and forth between the two organizations, though: even before Cro Cop and Rampage Jackson, guys like Wanderlei Silva and Jeremy Horn seem to have bounced back and forth at will.
I won’t be the one to say that Cro Cop wasn’t ever really that good. He is that good. He’s one of the few MMA fighters (two others are Josh Koscheck and Karo Parisyan) who was truly world class in another sport before crossing over. The holes in his game (chin, ground game) are well documented at this point, yet only a tiny handful of fighters have managed to take advantage of them. Those who have, fall into two categories: really good (e.g. Fedor Emilianenko) or really lucky (e.g. Kevin Randleman). I think Gabriel Gonzaga might be a bit of both.
Balduran got it in one, Vaseline on the face makes it more slippery and less likey to tear from a punch.
Cro Cop is indeed that good. I was watching his UFC debut with a friend who’s a former national amateur titleholder and another friend who’s a lightweight fighter. My heavyweight friend’s comment was “Cro Cop is a guy who kicks as hard as me, and as fast as him. Nobody that big should be that fast.” Big guy had a bad night, though.
Arlovski is a raging beast when he’s on, but can be a pretty boring fighter when he’s not. In his older fights he was indeed a raging beast, but it seems like he’s much more cautious fighter since he lost to Tim Sylvia in UFC 61. He had damn good reason to be cautious with Werdum, the guy’s a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu who’s won the Abu Dhabi submission wrestling world championship multiple times, nothing to sneeze at. His corner probably greatly impressed on him that this was not the guy you want to go to the ground with.
The thing is, those leg kicks were great, if he’d just kept them up. They may look like a little slap, but they hurt like shit, and they add up. If Arlovski had kept up with those kicks in the second and third rounds the way he did in the first, he could have weakened him, limited his mobility, and then worked his midsection, then when Werdum drops his hands Arlovski’s all over him like a chicken on a Cheeto, and we’d have seen a great fight. As it was Arlovski had to walk a fine line between too cautious and too aggressive. It’s hard to blame the guy, former titleholder on his way back up who doesn’t feel like he can afford to lose one by a stupid move.
“Knocked the f*** out” is a line from the movie Friday, hilariously and memorably delivered by Chris Tucker.
Yeah, but how big was he? 222 lbs. is a lot of beef to come down on one’s tiny little knee and ankle.
Looks like the YouTube vids have been pulled, but there appears to be a replay of UFC 70 tonite on Spike.
IMHO, that was an earlier example of this same thing. It doesn’t matter how big and strong you are, anybody will go unconscious if they get hit in the head just right.
Since I’m too cheap to get PPV, UFC 60 is the last that I’ve seen (other than the end of the Cro Cop fight on YouTube).
Duke , did you mean Monday night or Tuesday? Because my listings show “UFC Unleased” being on tonight, but Cro Cop isn’t mentioned, and I would think that he would be. The description is “Karo Parisyan vs. Strasser Dave, Nate Quarry vs. Shonie Carter, “Babalu” vs. Travis Wiuff, and Nick Diaz vs. Drew Fickett.”
The beautiful thing about UFC 70 was that it was free in the States. It was broadcast live on Spike. 
Seems like that’s been happening a lot lately.
It was last night (Monday) on Spike at 8PM Eastern (7PM here Central). I have Direct TV if that matters (my PBS listings are a day later than everybody it seems, but I would expect Spike to be universal).
Just read part of an interview with Crocop where he said that he didn’t even see the head kick coming. He said his vision was blurry after taking 3 or 4 elbows to the temple while they were on the ground. He also said he has a swollen right ankle that he will try to stay off for a couple weeks.
If you live near a decent sized city you can check the UFC site for sports bars that are showing it…do a google search for sports bars and UFC and the official list is usually a couple down.
I’m watching the fighting right now. A good fight is a good fight. I’ll check out UFC 61 - 70 when they come out.
One thing about Pride vs. UFC: [Just to lay out my lack of credentials: I’ve seen most of the first 60 UFC’s, and 1 or 2 PRIDE DVD’s] It seems to me that the UFC is better about stopping a fight quickly when it’s over. I love to see a good KTFO moment as much as anybody, but it makes me kinda sick to my stomach to see an unconscious fighter take 2-3 straight shots to the face; and I think I’ve seen more of those in PRIDE fights than in UFC fights.
Yeah, don’t know if you’ve seen the most recent Don Frye fight against James Thompson. Frye was standing but was obviously not even close to defending himself “intelligently.” Thompson was PISSED the ref let the fight go as long as it did. You can even see him in the video hesitate like…“OK, he’s not defending himself, are you going to step in so I can stop punching him?” He complained again in the post fight interview.
I much prefer Pride rules to UFC. I own some old Pride events and like the knees. I don’t think soccer kicks are as bad as everyone assumes (rarely do they end a fight) and elbows are a cheap way to cut someone to get a ref stoppage. Bring the knees to UFC, get rid of the elbows, and I don’t care either way about soccer kicks.
I like Pride better than UFC but it’s looking like I’ll probably have to convert more for supply than anything else.