Love Lost: The Disappearance Of The Fighting Spirit

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has stated that he is going to change things up and come back stronger for his next fight — this might be his last chance to prove that statement true.

It seems like eons ago that we got a taste of, “right kick hospital, left kick graveyard.”

So what has happened to the once revered striker of the heavyweight division?

Enter Gabe Gonzaga, his first real test in the U.S.

Just as Kevin Randleman had done before, Gonzaga hit the former Croatian special tactics team member with a shot he never saw coming.

Cro Cop lay unconscious on the ground, his right leg bent badly underneath him, put to sleep with his own meal ticket, the high kick.

This was the beginning of the end; the crushing of a man’s fighting spirit.

Message boards flooded with, “Cro Cop is done,” “He was exposed last night” and “Cro Cop should retire.”

It’s difficult to argue the latter after his last fight.

What we saw was an act to look like the Cro Cop of old, PrideFC T-shirt and all.

However, from the second the camera panned his face, one could see that he didn’t necessarily want to be in the Octagon with young stud Junior dos Santos.

If there’s one thing that Cro Cop doesn’t like, it’s when his offence is stifled and his opponent begins pushing forward.

Standing still is when Cro Cop is most dangerous. He can pick his shots and set up his left kick. However, when faced with an opponent who shows he’s not intimidated, as shown against dos Santos and also against Alistair Overeem most recently, Filipovic basically looks for one shot, he’s not looking to engage and lay the groundwork for a steady offence. He back-pedals and pushes away takedown attempts and plays defence until it’s too late.

He gets stuck striking out looking for a homerun instead of scoring singles and winning the game.

After verbally submitting to the younger, more aggressive dos Santos, Cro Cop scared us all, claiming he felt like “hanging himself.” He then sought counselling and since has shaken up his training camp in an attempt to sharpen his style and iron out any bad habits he may have formed while training with his old camp.

Can he come back from this? One thing for sure is that he is no longer an elite heavyweight and Ben Rothwell, his next challenge, poses a threat. Rothwell would’ve been almost a three to one dog if we were talking 2006, now it’s not out of this world to think that Rothwell may even be the favourite in this fight.

A complete overhaul of a fighter’s camp at the age of 35 could be a hard road to travel after appearing mentally unstable and losing that fire that fuelled him to Top-10 rankings while in Pride.

Time and time again, we’ve heard him say that he will come back, reinvigorated and stronger than ever, but one more decisive loss and we may see the first of the big three heavyweights of the PrideFC days call it a career.

He doesn’t deserve anymore beatings, KO’s or embarrassing fights. He’s done enough for those who know he was one of the best, he doesn’t need UFC gold to keep them as fans.