For better or for worse, former PRIDE and UFC heavyweight Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has withdrawn from his DREAM 4 grappling match against Ralek Gracie to give more recovery time to his nagging injuries according to Croatia’s Dnevnik.hr.
Scheduled to fight in the DREAM 5 main event against K-1 superstar Jerome LeBanner, Filipovic had more to lose than to gain by testing his mettle against Gracie.
As we reported in early May, Cro Cop suffered a minor knee injury during his training. The Croat initially dismissed the injury as a non-issue, but the cancellation of his match against Gracie indicates that it may still be lingering or perhaps coupled with existing injuries.
And if he’s going to go toe-to-toe against the dangerous LeBanner on July 21, he needs to be 100%.
Cro Cop most recently recovered from back-to-back losses inside the Octagon (Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheick Kongo) to take out Tatsuya Mizuno with ease during the inaugural show for DREAM last month. He has vowed to put together at least three consecutive wins and return to the UFC as early as January 2009 to redeem himself.
However, a rematch with Fedor Emelianenko on New Year’s Eve possibly stands in his way, as well as the French-born, LeBanner.
LeBanner has not competed in mixed martial arts since 2006. And although his MMA experience is limited, his kickboxing resume is not. In fact, he’s been in against the best, including Ernesto Hoost, Peter Aerts, Semmy Schilt, Mark Hunt and others.
Cro Cop and LeBanner have actually competed against one another during a K-1 event in 1996, which the Croatian won via unanimous decision. Expect a similar bout: Striking, striking and more striking. It would be a total shock if this match hits the canvas.
Now word yet from DREAM officials if Gracie will be given a last-minute replacement or if the grappling bout will be canceled altogether.
Stay tuned.
35 Comments »
that was a great night of fights.
all I’ll say tonight is:
MAGLIOTTA NEEDS TO GET HIS REFEREE LICENSE REVOKED AND GO AWAY.
Mayy wiman looked great, and that ppv had no big names and no title fights, but was well worth the money and was a great show.
more analysis monday, time to “ground and pound” my wife!!
Kevin: You are taking my lines now? Just Kidding, its all good! Hope you enjoyed your Birthday, I know I enjoyed mine. By now you should start recognizing my John-stradamus ability when it comes to picking winners in mma!
Kevin: is there anyway of finding out who the referee’s will be for each fight prior to the event? Because even though I won $ on Werdum, I do not ever want to bet money on a fight that Dan referee’s!
Yea right john, didnt you pick Daves, Thales and Day?
No I picked and bet on:
Alves
Bisping
Leites
Werdum
Davis
y am I talking to you anyway?
oh well washed up time to retire
He’s Far from washed up. I for one cant wait for the fight agianst lebanor.
Trust me, its a wash with this cat. He’ll never fight or grapple (LMAO!) someone rellavent ever again, if he wanted to do that he wouldnt have walked away from the biggest org in the MMA world, wash!
come back Cro Cop.
Cop… out?
this grappling match necer made much sense anywayz
True, but it would have been interesting.
Would have been interesting to see, but I’d rather see a 100% Crocop against LeBanner!
You guys should read the comments of your readers more often again, I posted a comment about this with a link 24h ago, one or two other times other stories I posted didn’t got picked up at all.
Maybe add next to the Contact form a small form to pass you some information on current events as you simply can’t keep track of everything that’s happening all around the world?
He is such a disappointment, he should have dropped to 205 years ago..
I mean, he demolished Wanderlei twice and look the success that he has.
actually their first fight was considered a draw due to special rules, but if anyone watched their first fight, wandy won that fight hands down!
Linx: Wandy easily won the 1st fight. That may have been wanderlei’s most impressive prformance….He showed the ability to fight SMART, not just wild and ultra agressive like he usually does. Like you said, although wandy deserved to win, special rules made it a draw
Wandy fought a very smart and technically sound fight against cro cop the 1st time.
Is anyone really surprised that Mirko pulled out of the grapplingt match?
John and linx are 100% right!….Wand looked amazing the first time he fought CC…
To those who dont know?..the “special rules” that linx and john are refering to is that it was a 5 round fight with no judges….
There was a ref to stop the bout if needed, but if it was to go the distance? the fight would be called a draw…ie the only way to win that fight was to finish your opponant….
Wanderlei got the best of Mirko in that fight(all around), but neither could finish the fight, meaning it went all rounds, and without judges, this fight was considered a draw!
But the second time they fought? Mirko put a hurting on Wand, KO’ing him in devistating fashion..
You reference their first fight, but not the most recent, hence most relevant one: In their latest match Crocop dismantled Wandy like few did before.
the person who started the post said crocop destroyed wandy twice, I’m just pointing out where he is wrong…
roids=injuries
indeed.
so again with the roids conspiracy heh?
Ah, thats why Liddell and Shogun are injured?
Why leave the UFC to go to ??DREAM???? And why leave early on his contract??? UFC doesnt do 2 fight contracts with superstars dude. I could understand if he left to retire, but . . . He signs with a nobody org to fight who at HVWT??? There were plenty of options for him in the UFC, besides avenging losses at HVWT he could have faught at 205 against the most stacked division in the world! So its either roids or he doesnt want to fight the best and thats even worse, isnt it? Its not like he left to fight Fedor or better comp somewhere else, he was about to grapple some kid LoL and just cause the kids last name was Gracie its supposed to be rellavent or put Kro back on the map . . . Choose your poisen, roids or puss = )
Calm down bro, I was one of the first to discredit crocop for leaving the UFC. But just because someone makes a move does that automatically mean they were on the “roids” or that he is all the sudden a “p*ssy” who couldn’t cut in the UFC? He had a quick defeat by someone that I see has no heart (gabe), and a boring but not demolished defeat in a top HW in kongo. Enough of these conspiracy theories, who knows what is in someone’s mind before they make a decision. Are you all of the sudden a psychic? Truth of the matter is that crocop is a HUGE superstar in japan, and Dream by no means is a “nobody organization”. Granted they don’t have a valid HW division right now, and surely crocop fought a nobody in Dream (who is not even HW), but have you ever asked yourself if maybe he’s trying to help them grow? Pride was and still is the best organization ever made, production wise and quality pool wise, and Dream is trying to follow in its footstep. But they can’t get there overnight and with no names, it takes time to grow. I don’t know why crocop left, only he does, I am mad as you are that he did though. But I’m not going to say that he used roids and that was the reason he was good, or that he was just a p*ssy who couldn’t take the heat in the UFC. It appears that if someone comes from overseas and has a two fight losing streak all of the sudden they are on the juice, you guys said the same thing about wandy and that didn’t hold water, it doesn’t hold water here either.
I never made comments about wandy (wasnt one of those guys). But i remember the comments. So kongo is a top HVWT, not top ten on any lists ive seen. Remember he just lost to Herring, diffinitivly! And i dont see Herring on any top ten list either. Kongo is maybe top 30, at best. A lot of guys lose 2 in a row, BJ Penn (he was coming out of K-1/Pride, or returning i should say) as of yesterday Hughes (and not only is that 2 in a row but 3 out of his last 4 only beating Lytle in that mix) Wandy lost 3 in a row including Pride losses, but the 3rd was a war with a top tenner in Liddell) And i dont think any of these guys do roids, actions speak louder than words and Kro’s actions are speaking volumes. Roids or not, we’ve seen the best of Krocop. Period.
i think the dilly-o w/ crocop is he didnt train properly to compete in the cage and in the us. he even admitted that he didnt think training in a cage was even importent. plus he is a smaller hw and fought the bigger guys in the ufc, g.g. and kongo. im not making excuses for cro-cop his ego got in the way and he paid the price. i dont think in his case steroids had anything to do with his failures. there are some that i do think are failing because of roids, but wont mention them because i have no actual proof, just speculation.
Ok Adam, when I say “top” I don’t mean “top ten”, I just mean a valid HW (a dangerous HW, are you going to say kongo is not dangerous?), doesn’t necessarily mean top 10. And where do you get this top 30 at best stuff from? Some of you guys just start talking smack like that out of now where. “Someone is top 30 at best, this guy is not even top 100” blah blah blah.
Like you said, wandy lost three times and many ppl were saying he was on the roids in Pride, but if you’re telling me the truth that you yourself don’t believe wandy was on roids than you should understand where I’m coming from. You can’t just start saying someone was on roids just because they did good in japan and all of the sudden lost in the US, there are many factors that can happen, change of environment (ring vs cage), change of rules, and change of fans (Japanese fans rarely boo).
Agreed. and yea, Kongo is a decent HVWT.
Lets see if he puts together those 3 W’s and returns to the UFC before i go jumping the gun, i guess. (But 3 consecutive W’s over who that matters, plus his knee injury from the Gonzaga kick and drop is still and probably will still affect him for the rest of his career. The weapon of choice for him is no longer an existing factor; the leg kick)
A rematch with Fedor wouldn’t interest me at all. He just lost 2 fights in the UFC. The last person he should be fighting is Fedor. He’s not the same fighter. Unless he does something in the next 6 months to prove he IS the same fighter, I’ll pass.
If anyone should be fighting Fedor on New Year’s, it’s Couture. That’s the matchup people want to see.
Has it actually been substantiated that Cro Cop will fight Fedor on New Year’s Eve? I would hesitate using that if it’s pure rumor.
Yea im sure youd pass on a chance to watch that fight dizzle, lol… huge mma fan you are… im assuming youre not gonna watch the sylvia fedor fight too huh?
does the UFC even have 30 heavyweight fighters?
Im talking about world rankings, guys like Fedor, Sylvia, Barnette, Monson, Arlovski, etc, are included.