Ok, this is really getting a bit too much to handle for MMA fans. I really don’t even know why I continue to try and feebly “predict” fights anymore. The big cliche has been that 2007 is the year of the upset. Well, I’m starting to buy into that theory and can’t even come close to imagining what will happen in MMA during the rest of 2007.
- Mirko Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga – What is there to say about this fight? I thought I was speechless after the Matt Serra vs Georges St Pierre fight. If that was speechless, I don’t even know what to call the general state of shock that I’m in right now. Gabriel
“Napao”“Na-POW” Gonzaga dominated this fight from start to dramatic finish. Never in 100 years did I imagine that Cro Cop would get knocked by a high head kick from Gonzaga. I thought Gonzaga had a decent chance on the ground, where Cro Cop has proven to be susceptible; but I don’t think anyone saw that absolutely crazy finish that we saw. Besides a possible concussion, the most dangerous thing for Cro Cop has to be the unnatural way his right leg was twisted as he collapse. He easily could have severe ligament damage, and at the very least a severely sprained ankle. - For a while, I think that the “highlight” head kick knockout in the UFC belonged to Chuck Liddell in his victory over Renato Sobral. A few months ago, Rashad Evans took that title in his head kick knockout over Sean Salmon. Well, Gabriel Gonzaga easy now holds the head kick title with his vicious knockout over Cro Cop.
- Michael Bisping vs Elvis Sinosic – Michael Bisping performed up to expectations in what had to be the most pressure-filled fight of his career. Seeing how worked up Bisping was on his march to the octagon and during the fighter introductions, I had visions of Jens Pulver vs. Joe Lauzon running through my head. I was hoping that Bisping didn’t psych himself up too much, too early so that he would gas out early. Sinosic took a beating and almost pulled of the kimura in the second round, but ultimately Bisping looked the best I have ever seen him. I still don’t see him being close to ready for a Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, or Quinton Jackson, but this was a good showing.
- I knew there would be commercials during the SpikeTV broadcast of UFC 70, but man, I didn’t realize there would be commercials every 5 minutes. Out of a 3 hour broadcast, I would have to estimate there were close to 2 hours of commercials. I would almost have rather paid for the PPV then to sit through that. But, when you stop and think about it, the UFC PPV shows really are filled with commercials; they just happen to be commericials for their own upcoming shows.
- Andre Arlovski vs Fabricio Werdum – This fight was pretty underwhelming and I was dissapointed with both fighters performance. I was hoping to see a dominating performace by Arlovkski, but it never materialized.
- Randy Couture vs Gabriel Gonzaga should be a very interesting fight. Especially, considering the fact that Couture said he would matchup better against Cro Cop and would rather fight him than Gonzaga.
[Cro Cop-Gonzaga graphic taken from FightReport.com]
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Caesar Gracie
John
Yael Grauer
Dale
Tyler Johnson
felo
Mike
Tony
Shawn
Ben Cartlidge
when i saw that ko on tv, i thought my eyes were playing games on me. it took me a second to realize that gonzaga wasnt the one who got kicked. awesome performance by gonzaga, id be lying if i said that i was going for mirko, but seeing him get ko’d by a highkick, by gonzaga nonetheless, was about as exciting as it gets.
does anyone else think that dana white is pissed at gonzaga cro crop is way more marketable then gonzaga man what a fight CHUCKS NEXT
he might be a little pissed with all the hyped he gave to Mirko, but this is also a great thing for the UFC a new superstar is born, more interesting matches can be made with NAPAO’s victory over a high profiled fighter like Mirko, he becomes an instant name in that division
this guys a good fighter he can submit his opponent and surely he can knock you out, but i think he can’t knock out randy
but still an Arlovski vs Cro cop fight will be an amazing fight in my opinion
but still, napao has a lot to prove in the UFC
This is what I think about ufc 70. Apart from the 50 commercials you had to watch to see the 2 entertaining fights there were, it wasnt too bad. Kongo has all the potential in the world but his ground game was pathetic. Lucky for him after taking him down, silva’s ground game was equally as pathetic. HATS OFF TO ELVIS SINOSIC, it’s like they say: better to fight and lose then to not fight and win. In this case take a beating and lose but what an entertaining fight. Bisbing pushed an incredible pace and never slowed down. Hes definetely in the top 5 for his division. Arlovski really pissed me off though. He always looks like hes about to throw a huge combo but for the 2nd and third round thats all he did. What a boring fight. I kept yelling out PUNCH! PUNCH! but i guess from 3000 miles away he couldnt hear me. Too bad he didnt realize that all the fans in the arena were yelling it too. Holy **** what happened to that guy.
Finally what a brilliant showing for Ganzaga. I thought he was gonna be another stepping stone that the ufc keeps trying to give to guys that they want to make money off of. But i saw his training the day before and after that I knew he wouldnt be no stepping stone. I wish cro cop had one though for one reason. Had he won he would have gotten couture, had he won that chuck. Those are 2 fights i wanna see more than any. Oh well now i just gotta see another brazillian that cant speak english say stupid brazilian ****. O well.
I hope cro cops next fight is against arlovski.
sry one more thing
Chuck is all that the ufc has left. When chuck loses the ufc is gonna be weird. Hes the last guy that people say cant lose, that hasnt lost yet. This time last year we had Hughes, Franklin in the same boat but now its only Chuck. So ud all better pray he beats Rampage cuz it’ll be a ****** up ufc if he doenst. Im getting sick of upsets theres just too many nowadays lol. HOW STUPID IS IT THAT MATT SERRA WILL BE THE COACH OF TUF 6! GIVE HIM AT LEAST ONE TITLE DEFENCE FOR ***** SAKES TO SHOW HOW LUCKY HE IS! and why hughes again? is there no one else in the whole ufc to take other than these two? **** Dana common!
i want to know if cro crop broke an ankle or something he just landed hella weird
@ Dr. J
What happened to Heath vs. Machida??
Machida by decision
CRO COP KNOCED OUT HUH… WATCHING THE UFC NOW IS STARTING TO SUCK WITH ALL THESE UPSETS.
GOOD GOD!!!!!!! See this is the stuff im talking about!!!!! I really wanted cro cop to get a title shot and finally become a champion,seeing that he couldnt do it in the pride for obvious reasons(fedor) and now hell have to wait. But to be honest if i wouldave honestly looked at it i shouldave seen that gabriel wouldave had a chance. Especially when he got him down the first time. Cro cop had NO answer for gabriels size and very distinctive weight advantage. He got caught with 2 of every three elbows gabriel threw. If Dean wouldnt have stood them up gabriel would have easily gotten the knock out from the floor. He set that dang kick up perfect wth a earlier body kick that he missed. shoot i didnt even think he could get his leg up that dang high to tell you the truth and i think mirco thought the same thing and got knocked out. It was sad in the ending because mirco looked like he wanted to announce his retirement. Oh lord lets pray this is not the year of the _____,i dont wanna say it nemore because i dont want to jinx anybody else. But chuck will once again proove he is the real deal with a knock out win over rampage…i hope!
Sooo…. if Wand sucks because he lost to Henderson, then GSP SUCKS, and Mirko Cro Cop SUCKS, and we all knew that Tim SUCKS, but now we can also see that Andrei Arlovski is starting to SUCK…
Kidding, these great fighters will hopefully come back strong, but seriously, we are seeing that they are starting to believe all that hype about themselves, like Pride advertisements were asking about Wanderlei, “IS HE A GOD”? .. duh you idiots, and I think that is why he lost, because he started thinking he was invincable, same with GSP, same with Mirko, (tim just sucked).
I can’t believe that Andre said he can’t fight “wild and crazy” anymore, he has to play safe because of all the competition in the UFC right now and he “did what his trainers told him”, well did they tell him his fights have been SUCKING lately and if he loses his fan base it doesn’t matter if he become champ again because he will be another “safe player’ like Tim?
I hope he steps it back up, I know risks suck when you lose, but most times he went in there and tore up his opponents like a “pit bull”, not as of late though.
THIS IS HORSE ****.. I WANTED CRO COP TO WIN… WHAT IS UP WITH THIS I JUST THINK CRO COP THOUGHT THAT KICK WAS GOING TO THE SIDE AND NOT HIS HEAD…IMPRESSIVE KICK IF I MAY ADD…I STILL THINK CRO COP WILL BE CHAMP….
OH KANSAS..
THE PITBULL SAYS NEXT TIME WELL SEE THE PITBUL
I hope so Patrick cause I haven’t seen him in a long while, and man, he is one of the most exciting fighters in the UFC on his A game.
I THINK DANA SAID THAT IF HE GOT PAST FABBY THEN HE WOULD GET THE WINNER OF COTOURE VS NOW GONZAGA…. AND IF HE GETS A TITLE FIGHT I GUARENTEE THE REAL PITBULL COMES OUT
I THINK THAT ANDREI WAS SCARED OF THE GROUND GAME OF FABBY AND FABBY WAS SCARED OF HIS POWER SO THEY BOTH TOOK IT EASY I GUESS I DUNNO
I also think Cro Cop will come back and become Champ, just like I can see Wand or Shogun getting the 205lb title back in Pride, just like I can see Matt Hughes beating Matt Serra in August, and really I think that Matt falls under the upset catagory as well, I mean GSP is awesome, but Matt is good too, and I think Hughes started to believe that “the most dominant middleweight champion of all time” mantra that Dana has looping on all the tv channels over and over and it went to his head. So in the end, the hype exceeded the fighters, all of them, and they will all come back within the next 12 months and take their titles back and/or win a title in my opinion, or retire and sulk in a corner.. one or the other..
Well I dont think that he was holding back, i just think that he knows how werdum is on the ground and if i was OK on the ground and i was fighting a expert on the ground like werdum i wouldnt want it to go on the ground because you all know that when your fighting a good jui jitsu guy a combo from the other oppents usally leads to a clinch and in most cases the ground, and arlovski played it safe for now to ensure he gets his shot. I think he is playing this perfect, i believe once he gets that shot at the title he will start to believe he can be feared again and that will aid his confidence,not his ego, and he will be the champ. But yea i think it was good strategy, to play it cool until you get your for sure shot and then show them what hes made of.
Yeah Patrick, I think that Andrei didn’t want to chance it on getting a title shot, and he was fighting Cro Cops BJJ coach so yeah, he knew better than to go down there. I am happy he won, fighting Gonzaga or Couture probably December 07 for the title is in his future I think now that he has cleared that obstacle. Maybe one more before the title who knows. You are right they both played safe.
KANSAS
I AGREE GSP WILL BE CHAMP AGAIN
CRO COP WILL BE TOO
WAS ARLOVSKI SPORTIN A MULLET???LOL
ok i wonder where gabriel victory places him on the rankings? Ok so can someone school me on this so 1) how are we going to see who is the real heavy weight champ in the world,? so will ufc get contracts for fighters like fedor to get them to fight in ufc? How will we see these fights?
yeah, I think he was, and I noticed his hair is getting back out there, and he is keeping the beard. I think he is going retro baby!! lol
@Todd
The MMA superbowl of sorts is where we will seperate the sheep from the goats and know who the best is.
As far as rankings go, mmaweekly probably will put Gonzaga at 4th or 3rd after that fight, they change their top 10 all the time and I don’t think they are very accurate. Like Serra earned the top spot, from nowhere after beating GSP, whereas I think Serra should be at spot 10 if not off the charts period, regardless of his one fluke surprise….
@kansas
so will ufc get to sign all the good fighers like sokojdou, or fedor,ect to bring them to ufc, or do you think dana will try and protects his money makers like chuck, and not sign these fighters here in the ufc and keep pride and their top fighters going on over there?
Well, honestly, nobody can say what goes on in the head of Dana White, some think he is a genius, some think he is an idiot. I don’t think he is either a hero or a zero, he is somewhere in between and I think he WILL protect Chuck for the time being, Chuck is a good headliner and an American, I don’t think Fedor, Wand, or Shogun will market quite as well to the general public because none of them speaks a ton of english, and none of them have a lot of mystik, people don’t care about the car Fedor drives, but I can tell you that Chuck drives a Ferrari, you know. Dana will probably award some of the better fighters contracts with the UFC and make Pride a secondary / feeder organization eventually. I love this site because I can always get a good perspective from Dennis, Richard, RJ, or Dr J, I may be wrong as rain, but that is my current thinking on the subject.
KANSAS
WHERE DO U THINK THE PITBULL IS GONNA BE IN THE RANKINGS
I think the pitbull will be at spot 5. He will move up for sure, but not much because of his lackluster performance. There is a slight chance he could move up to 4, because of Cro Cop’s loss, but Gonzaga will def. move up too, so thats pushing some people out of the top 10.
I SEE KANSAS
@Pat
You think it makes since or are you not agreeing, what do you think about the rankings?
WHATCHA MEAN KANSAS ABOUT EVERYONE IN GENERAL?
Well, I know you are a pitbull fan, so I am talking about my rankings prediction for the pit bull
MAN I FEEL SO BAD FOR CRO COP… THIS **** BLOWS
the one thing i really like about the “underdogs” winning is that it takes me back to when you really couldnt pick a winner because the sport was so new and no one had a real advantage. i would rather see a fight that i didnt know who would win then one that i knew for sure eg. tim sylvia vs. jeff monson everyone knew how that fight would go and it did and it sucked but tim sylvia vs. randy couture was kinda up in the air and that fight was great. both fights went all 5 rounds and both fights were kinda slow so why was one better then the other? i think couture vs. sylvia was better because people watch to see HOW the fight ended not WHEN it ended. cro cop vs. gonzaga was an awesome fight. i am a big cro cop fan but i’m a bigger mma fan and as much as i wanted to see cro cop win it was still cool as hell to see such a savage head kick knock out!!! its starting to look like the ju jitsu guys that learn some kick boxing are taking over.
@RJ
HEY GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU! I SEE THEY FINALLY LET YOU OUT OF THAT DARN JACKET YOU’VE BEEN TIED UP IN!
KIDDING!
I think you make a good point. Take a BJJ guy and teach him some striking and what you get is the best rounded fighter out there. I have saying for a while, that one dimensional fighters and wrestlers will not fare well in MMA. MMA, in it’s current form, was built on the Gracie BJJ.. and if you are versed in that art and are a great striker, you can beat just about anyone out there.
i think gonzaga knew exactly what he was going to do to cro crop meaning cro crop expecting for him to shoot then gonzaga hitting him with the NA-POW KICK it was awesome for cro crop to get a taste of his own medicine now the pitbull needs to let some chest hair grow back once he shaved it he started to suck so first he grows the beard then the chest then last and more deadly the infamous shoulder and back
i got an idea people saying that they underestimated a fight is bull what if a fighter sylvia,gsp,cro crop trained the hardest they could were in the best shape the possibley could be in after all that the get beaten if i was them i would say i took my opponent lightly to try to save face im just wondering if these guys really were at the top of there game when they lost
LOL RICHARD UR RIGHT….
HE DID BETTER WITH THE WAREWOLF LOOK
Hey RJ, are you from Florida?
no i’m from Canada eh lol! what makes you ask?
Oh.. knew a guy named Ronald John St.Croix in Florida once.. thats all..
i got a buddy that really wants to fight for a living and break in to mma so i told him condition yourself to run a marathon and train as much bjj and muay thai as you can if nothing else that will get you a hell of a good start.
Sounds like a plan… those two arts seem to mesh very well in MMA
thats funny. well my real name is Randall-Joseph St.Croix. yes my first name is Randall-Joseph or Randy-Joe if you feel a bit hillbilly. well my moms calling so i’ll be back at 3:00am or so. peace
@RJ
Your kidding about your mom calling right?… LOL!
@R.J.
So did you ever know people in Baltimore Maryland?
@DR J
Have you read the new Cro Cop interview, the one where he basically describes himself as unmotivated and apathetic and that is why he lost. Sound like he is unhappy fighting and would much rather be back on the Lucko force, just from his interview.
@MMAK,
yeah, I read it earlier yesterday. I was going to post the translation here this morning, but I didn’t really see any new info in the article that I thought would warrant a whole new post. He did seem like the was disinterested and acknowledged that fact.
He’s got 4 fights left on his current deal so hopefully we’ll see him wakeup in the future and put on some great fights.
There was an interview with Dana White where he said that they wanted to give Cro Cop a title fight already but he didn’t want it. Dana said that he thought Mirko’s camp was trying to “milk” his contract and take some easier fights before he fought for the title so he could get a larger paycheck with his next contract. But after reading that Cro Cop article it appears that maybe Cro Cop is considering hanging up the gloves after the rest of his current UFC deal is finished.
@DrJ
Yeah, it’s sad because the guy is only 32 years old, sounds like he needs to find God, or go back to Lucko, or serve another term in Parliment, but it sounds like he is not happy with his life currently .. I know where he is at, some people hit those bumps in the road where their current situation is dark and then they come out of it, I have had the same things happen. Maybe he is manic depressive.
yea that sucks.. Thats the #1 weapon a fighter has, the desire to compete and conquer, when thats gone, and fighting becomes more like a chore, you know the end is near. Too bad, Mirkos a legend man, it will be a real heavy blow to the MMA community to lose him.