Pat Barry helps Mirko Filipovic train after losing to him
Two months after getting knocked down and then choked out by his idol, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, American mixed martial artist Pat Barry has revealed he’s going to go help Cro Cop train for an upcoming November bout.
In an interview with uscombatsports.com, Barry said Filipovic told him as soon as his hand, which was broken at his UFC 115 fight with the Croatian legend, healed properly he should fly to Croatia to train alongside him. And Barry couldn’t be more thrilled.
"You can’t write this man, this isn’t even a dream. This is just all around fabulous. I’m just going to keep riding with it, man, and keep screaming thank you out the window to somebody,” said Barry in the interview.
Barry was never shy about showing his admiration for Filipovic, even hugging him in the middle of the first round of their fight. Filipovic had been a trail blazer for kickboxers in MMA, a path which Barry, a young kickboxer, hopes to follow.
Cro Cop had fallen on some hard professional times before his UFC 115 fight, while Barry had looked faster, sharper and ready to take up the mantle. But Cro Cop survived a brutal first round, getting knocked down twice, before coming back to win round two and finally submit Barry in round three. But the early success of Barry appears to have shown the Croatian something he wanted to experience again.
"He (Filipovic) said, you are faster than I am and you hit harder than I do, or something like that, but I could tell that when we grabbed each other, he’s like I could tell you weren’t very strong. Like you haven’t been wrestling with guys bigger than you or stronger than you. So I’ve got a lot of giant serial killer Croatian guys out here, that are wrestlers that I could throw at you. But I would really like you to come out here and be my sparring partner for my next fight."
Also to train with Lesnar
Barry is also going to be training with current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar ahead of Lesnar’s upcoming UFC 121 match with Cain Velasquez. This should be an arrangement that will benefit both fighters. Lesnar showed vulnerability to striking in his last match, getting dropped and then brutally pummelled by Shane Carwin before mounting an incredible second-round comeback victory.
Velasquez’s kickboxing also looked fantastic in his last match against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, so it seems Lesnar will be hoping to sharpen his striking and defence with a tough young kickboxer like Barry. Meanwhile Barry’s undoing in both of his UFC losses has been his lack of a ground game. He was submitted by Tim Hague before getting out-wrestled and submitted by Filipovic. Working with a top-notch wrestler will give him a chance to work off his back and improve the main deficiency in his game.
Okami’s example
Training with a foe who just vanquished him may seem odd, but Barry can take inspiration from the example of Yushin Okami. Okami was dominated by Chael Sonnen at UFC 104, and then almost immediately went to train with him afterwards. It paid dividends, and Okami has looked better than ever in his past two fights. Barry can hope to learn from the man who beat him.
More importantly may be the significance for Filipovic. After he experienced multiple disappointments in the UFC, one of the main criticisms against him was that he continually trained with a small group of amateurs in Croatia who couldn’t mimic the quality of the opposition he’d face in the octagon. With Barry’s announcement, it appears Filipovic, now resurgent with his win over Barry, is taking his training more seriously and is going through the effort of bringing in top-level sparring partners.
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