“Cro Cop” vs. “Might Mo” Expected For DREAM 10 on July 20
After snubbing the UFC and bolting for DREAM following his UFC 99 win on Saturday, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic will attempt to keep his promise of fighting three more times before the end of the year, agreeing to fight Siala “Mighty Mo” Siliga at DREAM 10 on July 20 in Saitama, Japan, according to SI.com.
Competing under a special one-fight deal, Cro Cop (25-6-2) defeated Mostapha Al-Turk via controversial first-round TKO at the event in Cologne, Germany. Despite vowing that he’d agree to a new contract with the promotion for at least two more fights should he win his UFC 99 matchup, Filipovic instead signed a three-fight deal with DREAM. Cro Cop is 8-2 with 1 no contest dating back to 2006, including wins over Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett, but has struggled of late. After losing back-to-back UFC bouts to Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheick Kongo in 2007, Cro Cop recorded victories over weak competition in Tatsuya Mizuno, Hong Man Choi and Al-Turk and looked unimpressive in a no contest to Alistair Overeem late last year.
Mighty Mo (3-1), a kickboxer who had lost five-straight bouts prior to an August victory, suffered a first-round submission loss to Semmy Schilt at Dynamite!! 2008 in late-December in his most-recent MMA contest, his first fight in nearly a year-and-a-half.
DREAM 10 features Shinya Aoki vs. Vitor Ribeiro and Paulo Filho vs. Melvin Manhoef, as well as the semifinals and finals of the promotion’s welterweight tournament.
Click here for the latest DREAM 10 rumors.
[Pictured: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic]
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Finally the truth came out? What a d-bag!!!
Lame, I like Cro Cop, but I want to see him fight the UFC roster before he says goodbye to the MMA world.
Like the article said Crop Cop hasn’t had an impressive performance in a while and he’s set to fight “might mo” a dude who is no where near “top tier”, dana should thank crop cop for signing with dream instead of “making a run @ the title”. He would have gotten his ass whooped by any top 10 hw in the ufc. Crop cop needed the ufc more then they needed him so in my book, cro cop loses. He’s lost some fans and his chance to finish his career in the best mma organization. I’ve always been a cro cop fan, but like wandy, he isn’t the same fighter anymore.
I’ve always been a Cro-cop fan, i wish he could have fought a few more times in the UFC and had those more high profile fights with the big names in the UFC. Cro-cop vs Couture would have been huge, but what are you gonna do?
I hope before his career’s over he can score a “Cro-cop” left kick and end his career on one of those, but still i feel in the long run he will regret not staying in the UFC.
JAZZKOK I AGREE 100% THERE IS NO WAY THAT HE WOULD BE ABLE TO HANG WITH A TOP TEN HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDER. AND I THINK THAT MAYBE IN SOME WAY HE KNEW THAT. HE STOOD IN FRONT OF THE CROWD IN GERMANY SAID SAID “IM VERY PLEASED WITH MY PERFORMANCE” AND I KNOW THAT ALL OF US WERE THINKING “WHAT PERFORMANCE?” ALL THAT I SAW WAS AN EYE POKE. HE WANTS TO FIGHT THESE CRAPPY GUYS IN OTHER ORGANIZATIONS BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT HE ACTUALLY HAS A CHANCE AGAINST THEM. NONETHELESS, MIRKO IS NOWHERE NEAR TOP TEN AND MAYBE THIS IS A SMART MOVE ON HIS PART TO NOT GET THE “TIM SYLVIA REPUTATION”?
DUDE I AGREE WITH YOU, IT’S BETTER FOR CRO-COP TO BEAT THESE NOBODIES RATHER THAN BECOME LIKE TYM SILIVIA OR THE SHAMROCKS. CRO-COP STILL HASN’T HAD SUCH A BAD BEATING LIKE SYLVIA OR SHAMROCK SO HE MADE THE SMART MOVE TO NOT STAY IN THE UFC WHERE HE WOULD LIKE HAVE GOTTEN “CRO-COP’ED” AGAIN.
you guys like caps much?
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
Caps much?
The eye poke wasnt that big a factor …… he was beating al-turk soundly even before that .I’m sure that he did look at his performance and say it wasnt near his best so lets go to DREAM . Dana just needed him to get beat up by vasquez so he can push the young guy . If Crocop had backed out of the fight with Turk at the last second then it would be different but he did his thing and left
yeah dude your right, the fact that he did his thing and then left is what makes him look bad. They say karma’s a bi*ch so we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe he’ll get beat up by the guy who beat Jose Canseco.
Hong man choi, haha. I can never take that guy seriously. Although he does have a few notable wins.
Why didn’t he sign a three fight deal with a stipulation to get cut if you lose your first fight(s)? They do it for most other contracts.
It is probably in everyone’s best interest, most notably CroCop himself, the he left the UFC and the cage for smoother sailing in DREAM and the ring, and left with a win, regardless of its semi-tainted nature.
While I certainly agree with marvelknight4 that the HYPE for a projected CroCop/Couture match-up would have been huge, the FIGHT itself would have most likely been pretty one-sided, would have most likely been another in-cage disappointment for CroCop and his fans, and most likely would have been another Captain America-like performance for Randy Couture. At this stage of their careers, and considering their most recent past performances and fighting styles, I’m not even sure if CroCop could last all 3 rounds in a cage with Couture, regardless of age difference.
I know that CroCop leaves the UFC wearing the d-bag label, but I wish the guy well. I’m sure he has health concerns, bills to pay, mouths to feed, his fans and legacy to consider, and would rather not wind down his otherwise-stellar career on the corner of Ken Shamrock St. and Tim Sylvia Blvd…
Dude but you have to consider how much this dishonorable, sneaky move will impact how he’s seen in the future. When we look back on crop cop when it’s all said and done, we’ll remember his left kick but we’ll also remember how he played dana and the ufc. His “legacy” has been someowhat tarnished.
I agree, Jazzkok.
I try hard to avoid fighter-bashing, but I think CroCop was in a no-win scenario in some respects. Its hard to defend his underhanded actions. I will say that if he had stayed in the UFC, he would have most likely piled up losses and/or beatings, and had his rep tarnished. If he goes elsewhere, with a considerably lower overall HW talent level, he looks like he’s ducking people he knows down deep he cannot beat, and has his rep tarnished.
Whats the smart play here for him?
The guy still needs to make a living, so he chose what he considered the lesser of 2 evils. I’m positive that there was a better, non-bridgeburning way to do this, and for that I blame the people in CroCop’s ear almost as much as I blame CroCop. Screwing over the top promoter in your sport not only makes poor business sense, but makes you look like a poor sportsman, and is a slap in the face to MMA fans in general and HIS fans in particular.
I wish him luck going forward primarily because he’ll need it…
In all seriousness, I too wish Cro-cop the best because he did provide great and spectacular moments in his career and he did help build the worldwide popularity of this sport. What he did by just scrrewing Dana White and the UFC is certainly of low class, but it does not overshadow the positives he did in his career. I’m sure he’ll always be remebered for his left kick rather than his “screw job” of Dana White. It’s better that he leaves because SERIOUSLY, i would greately HATE to see him end up like KEN SHAMROCK OR TIM SYLVIA.
. It’s really not that big of a deal .. So he doesnt fight in the UFC at the end of his career . The UFC has enough things on the go to worry about Mirko Crocop .
Okay I’ll take the role of devil’s advocate here…
Cro Cop signed a unique “one fight” deal with the UFC with the “promise” of making a run for the title? This is a business and both parties are trying to maximize their dollar, that’s just how it works. Verbal contracts can be binding but promises can be easily broken. If someone is not willing to sign a contract over one fight, why you would expect them to fulfill their “promise” of fighting more than that?
Look, I’m not saying it wasn’t a douchebag move but to say it wasn’t expected is just putting your head in the sand. That comment is more directed at Dana based on his response and his seemingly disbelief it happened – he really seemed downright shocked. He signed a contract for one fight, he fought once, end of story.
Rhetorical question: Has Dana White ever made an empty promise to a fighter?
While I agree that I’m sure Dana White has pulled his share of back-room screw jobs, for me this CroCop issue touched on the old thing of, “when I say it’s a business, they say it’s a sport”, and vice versa.
I’m totally fine with anyone who wants to view this as a simple business transaction wherein the negotiations broke down, or one party or the other didn’t “do business” correctly, but I think a lot of MMA fans out there and specifically his fans consider factors relating to the sport, Cro Cop’s place in it, his legacy and so on. IMO CroCop did a lot for MMA, especially before TUF sent MMA mainstram. I would hate to see the guy wind up as some footnote, or just remembered for a decapitating high kick and screwing over some promoter.
Yes, and there is no way to say this without fighter-bashing, but what CroCop did, if true, was an example of douchebaggery and screw-jobbing worthy of the WWE and Wall St., let alone the UFC. I just thought that the guy deserved better than ending his run kicking around has-beens and never-will-be’s well out of the MMA spotlight…
Actually, Mirko Cro Cop stated (in an interview with index.hr) that he never did make a verbal promise to have 3 more fights in th UFC. He said that Dana and him only agreed to one fight and that “after that we’ll see”. Mirko said his main goal was to have 3 more fights before the end of the year, and he didn’t much care whether that would be in UFC or outside.
You can believe him or not, but really, at this point there’s his word against Dana’s. And I do believe that Mirko really wants to fight 3 more times this year – there are many reasons why he would want this, most notably his age.