UFC 119 Preview: Frank Mir vs Mirko Cro Cop
Neither one of them is quite in contention for the heavyweight title at the moment, but as far as the history of the sport goes, there aren’t many heavyweights that have loomed larger in the history of mixed
martial arts than Frank Mir and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. The two are set to square off in the main event of UFC 119, occurring this Saturday in Indianapolis and broadcast on pay-per-view.
While Mir won two championships and was a perennial contender in the Ultimate Fighting Championships in the 2000s, Cro Cop became arguably the most popular heavyweight in the world after crossing over from
kickboxing into the Pride Fighting Championships. There he was famous for his left head kick knock-outs, and he captured the Pride Open Weight Grand Prix championship in 2006 before crossing over to the UFC shortly before Pride was bought out by the UFC.
Style
This is style match-up that has many fans drooling. Mir has always been one of the best heavyweight Brazlian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) practitioners in the heavyweight world of MMA, and has a series of impressive early
submissions to back it up, over fighters like Brock Lesnar, Tim Sylvia and recently Cheick Kongo. He’ll have the marked advantage on the ground if he can get it there.
Cro Cop is not completely helpless on the ground, having trained his own submission grappling with BJJ world champion Fabricio Werdum, and may have enough to survive should it go there, but he’ll want no
part of the ground game.
The big question will be if Mir can get it there. Mir’s wrestling has frankly always been suspect, with long sloppy takedown attempts. On the other hand, in his prime Cro Cop was a master of the “sprawl and
brawl” strategy, meaning he was almost impossible to put on his back, forcing his opponents to fight on their feet.
That’s the Croatian’s strong point. As shown in his recent fight against Pat Barry, he still possesses some solid kicking power and can put together fast combinations, a skill that comes from years of K1
kickboxing ability. If an aggressive, motivated Cro Cop can show up and stuff the take-down attempt, it could be a long night for Mir.
But even Mir has recently
shown marked improvement in his stand-up, with an impressive stoppage of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and a knock-down of Kongo leading to a guillotine choke, suggesting that even here, Cro Cop’s advantage
might not be clear cut.
Form and prediction
Unfortunately for fans of Cro Cop, this isn’t 2006 anymore. Since coming to the UFC, Cro Cop is 4-3, with three of those wins coming against very low-level competition, though he is coming off the biggest
win of his UFC career over Barry. At 36, he’s slower, less aggressive, and his recent interviews don’t even suggest a great deal of motivation for this fight, which he took on short notice.
Mir on the other just lost a title eliminator bout, and has been fighting top competition. Mir is 31 and has been making big efforts to improve his game in past years, and should take this fight. Currently
oddsmakers have him as roughly a 2/5 favourite, and he seems worth the money here.
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