According to Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic’s personal website, the Croation star will be making his return to mma competition at UFC 99 this summer in Germany. The next month, in February, Croation website dnevnik.hr featured a video with Mirko where he once again said he would be fighting at UFC 99.
We first reported the possibility of Cro-Cop fighting at UFC 99 when the Croation website Sportal first floated the rumor back in January.
Cro-Cop will reportedly face off against Mustapha Al-Turk when the UFC holds their June 13th event in Cologne, Germany.
The UFC has not made any officialy announcement yet, and the UFC 99 card is already rumored to feature 12 fights including a main event between Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva.
PRESS RELEASE: Cro Cop Back In UFC
These days the boys from Cro Cop team are training in full force. After a long break and highly demanding recovery process, Mirko Cro Cop is ready to fight in MMA again.
All problems with injuries are history and Cro Cop is very optimistic to start another chapter in his career:
„I feel great, the recovery process is going well and we train at high intensity now. I never had such a strong desire to prove myself and I’ll climb up again, or die trying.“Mirko’s next fight is set for June 13th in Germany, which means that he’s back in the UFC, a place that he didn’t have his best moments:
“I decided to fight in the UFC again, because of the stronger competition in the heavyweight division. My next opponent will be Mustapha Al-Turk. I didn’t do well in my first three appearances – I wasn’t myself. By returning to the cage I want to prove that I can still fight at highest level, no matter when or where.”, claims Cro Cop.
UFC 99 will be Cro Cop’s first fight this year with the possibility of three fights coming by years end.
“It’s hard to talk about concrete plans, but I would really like to fight at least three times this year. I wish to fight against quality opponents and to fight my way up to a title shot but for now, I’ll focus only on my next fight and after that we’ll see what’s going to be on the menu next“, says Cro Cop.
Although the UFC 99 card looks stacked, it seems that the UFC officials can see the benefits of hiring a top European fighter for their first ever UFC show in Germany.“I want to say thank you Mr. Dana White for your interest and for an invitation back to the UFC. I owe you a lot from our first deal, and I’ll make it up to you.“, promises Cro Cop.
All news related to Mirko Cro Cop’s career are posted on Mirko’s official MMA-ID profile on http://www.mma-id.com/CROCOP and Mirko’s official homepage http://www.mirko-crocop.com.
Yours truly,
The CROCOP Team
Jason
bvrasp
Michael Hatamoto
Amir
I understand that the new game is great, but this is an mma blog site, and I am finding it hilarious that it has become a video game forum and that’s ALL it is lately.
I think Cro Cop is counting before hatched UFC 99 is pretty much full and I think it would be great but strange to pull a switch up on Cro Cops supposed opponent at this point, unless there is a financial bonus to this. Just my thoughts.
Kansas, its just about 2 years of anticipation coming to an end tomorrow, im sure all that will die down before UFC 98 this weekend. I thought you said you had a 360 way back Kansas, you should get in on the tourney man.
Oh I have a 360 sitting there… just collecting dust man… lolz… probably will just go pick up a copy of that game and play it until I am sick of it and then put it away again… ;)
CroCop is finished. This is just another puff of smoke he is trying to announce to get another pay day. He has done this many times before and always ends up dissapointing.
It’s funny that after watching the documentary
“How Bruce Lee Changed the World”, constant references were made about his philosophy and influence on mixed martial arts and how a fighter needs to always adapt to his opponent. Yet, guys like CroCop and Chuck Liddell and others have done the exact opposite…interesting ain’t it?
For once, I’d love to see CroCop become unpredictable and take guys down or submit them.
I hope your wrong Amir, its tough to see Guys like Mirko, Wanderlei, Chuck, etc.. falling on hard times. Your probably right, but hey, i can still hope man. It would be nice to see Mirko possibly drop down to 205, im sure he could impose his will on alot of guys in the division.
Just so you know he HAS been working his BJJ for the past 5 years with Werdum. Im sure not all his time is dedicated to BJJ so hes probably a solid purple belt by now if not a brown belt.
I too once hoped that Mirko would dominate the UFC and prove that Pride fighters were tougher and fought better competition…but, he let me down way too many times. What about the fact that up until his UFC debut, he hadn’t even bothered to train in a cage?
That, to me, is showing arrogance and contempt for your opponents and fans. He came into the cage throwing head kick after head kick…I mean, I don’t get it when fighters exhibit such complete disregard and act so naive. Do they not watch TV reports? do they not understand that if they are not at their best, they can be seriously injured or even killed.
All I’m saying is that if I’m a fighter like CroCop and it is already widely known that all I’m going to do is try to kick my opponents head off and that he, in turn, will be religiously preparing for that…wouldn’t I have the common sense to have a different gameplan before he kicks my ***?
Yes, he has been working on his BJJ for many years, but, how many times has he even put himself into the proper position to display those skills and techniques?