Mirko Cro Cop vs Fedor Emelianenko: 10 years later

Hello lovely people of the internet. It's me again. Today we talk about the Fedor/Cro Cop fight.

Tomorrow, 28th of August, marks 10 years since the epic battle between Croatia's toughest police officer and Russia's greatest contribution to the world since vodka and mail order brides. I thought it would be convenient to take a look at the fight itself and where the men are today. Now let's get started.

Introducing the fighters

Mirko Cro Cop

In the late 90's and early 2000's Mirko quickly became an established K-1 legend in Japan with wins over Remy Bonjasky, Mark Hunt, Mike Bernardo and Jerome Le Banner among others. The Croat came short of a title championship many times with Ernesto Hoost getting the better of him each time. At the same time Japan's MMA sensation PRIDE FC was quickly gaining momentum and fame. Mirko, in search of a challenge went over to MMA and the rest, as they say, is history. His fame became even greater as his fan favorite fighting style and devestating ko's left the Japanese crowd in awe. Before his showdown with the Russian, only 2 people got the best of Mirko in MMA. A a submission loss to the BJJ whizz, Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira and a huge upset loss by knockout to Kevin Randleman. Mirko quickly bounced back after the losses and gained a 7 fight win streak which included a win by guillotine in a rematch against Randleman, head kick ko over Fedor's younger brother Alex Emelianenko, and a liver kick tko win against Ibragim Magomedov. Mirko was en route to a title fight against the reigning and defending champion. Fedor Emelianenko.

                                          
                                               Fedor watching Mirko knockout his brother

Fedor Emelianeko

The last Emperor. The man, the myth, the legend. His decade of dominance is full of former champions that felt the wrath of the mighty Russian. Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, Heath Herring, Mark Hunt, Mark Coleman, Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira, Kevin Randleman, Mirko Cro Cop(spoilers, sorry) are just some of the names Emelianenko bested.
Fedor made his Pride debut with a dominant decision win over Semmy Schilt and by his 3rd Pride fight, fought for the title against Minotauro Nogueira, who had only 1 loss at the time to Dan Henderson and even that was a split decision loss. So, naturally the Brazilian was the favorite. His unkillable will, a chin that could take a sledgehammer hit and slick submission skills made Minotauro a nightmare for every fighter he faced. Fedor beat the champion with such ferocity and domination that made Nogueira look like an absolute beginner. After becoming the Pride champion Fedor racked up a 9 fight win streak before facing the Croat. Some of his wins included; rematch against the former champion(Antonio Minotauro), Kevin Randleman(where he survived getting slammed on his head) and "the godfather of ground and pound" Mark Coleman.

                                            The legendary fight between Minotauro and Fedor
The fight

The fight was one of the most anticipated bouts(if not the most anticipated) in MMA history. The two were the best of the best and the winner would without a doubt be the best fighter of all time. Both men were at their physical primes and forces to be reckoned with. Mirko was the betting favorite because of his rangy "punch and move" style, speed, agility and most of all, his deadly kicks.

                      Check out Boondock's "3rd man", it's an excellent tribute video to the "ref cam" POV

After the fight
Claiming another soul, the Russian was once again victorious. Beating Mirko with a dominant  and one sided decision. Fedor impressed with his improved stand up managing to beat Cro Cop at his own game. 

Cro Cop
Mirko made a come back to the ring few months later with a deicision win over Josh Barnett that didn't show the Croat in his best shape, but he got the win. Next up was a decision loss in a rematch against K-1 legend Mark Hunt. Mirko, again, wasn't his old self. The Fedor fight took a toll on the Croatian. However, a career resurgence shortly followed. After grabing quick wins over Ikusha Minowa and Hideko Yoshida, Mirko qualified for Pride's Open-Weight Gran Prix tournament. The finals were on Mirko's birthday and It was "now or never" for him. The finals saw Mirko not only return to his former self but show a performance that was arguably the best one of his MMA career. The violent punishment of Wanderlei Silva and a dominant tko stoppage against Josh Barnett made Mirko the Open-Weight Gran Prix champion.

Fedor Emelianenko
Though lacking in competitiveness of fellow fighters, Fedor continued his reign of dominance with quick wins over Zuluzinho, Mark Coleman and Mark Hunt.


Later in their careers

After Mirko's impressive wins over Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett, the fans wanted the rematch of the fight of the century. There were talks, there were negotiations but ultimately nothing materialized as Pride FC began to crumble  and both men went their separate ways.



Fedor Emelianenko
After making short work of UFC's former champions Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia, the Russian's reign of dominance came to a halt in 2010 at the hands of the current UFC HW champion. Fabricio Werdum. It was shocking, it was unexpected, it was unbelievable. It was like being dumped by your girlfriend. The undefeated Russian suffered his first real loss, since suffering a  loss via cut against Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in late 2000. Another shock came in Febuary of 2011, when in the qualifying rounds of Strikeforce's HW tournament, Fedor got dominated by Antonio Silva. The dream was over. Fedor's aura of mystery and inhumanness was gone. Bad luck turned to worse, lighting struck 3 times in the same place as later that year Fedor suffered another(this time controversial)loss to Dan Henderson. At that point fans just wanted  the agony to be over with. The best fighter ever has clearly lost his edge. However, Fedor managed to bounce back and end his career with a 3 fight win streak against Jeff Monson, Satoshi Ishii and Pedro Rizzo.




Mirko Cro Cop 
After becoming Pride's Open-Weight champion, Mirko's career has been filled with many ups and downs. After a quick win over Eddie Sanchez in his UFC debut, his momentum came crashing down as Gabriel Gonzaga scored a shocking upset win with a head kick ko. After the ko loss, things didn't go all that well as he suffered another loss, this time to Cheick Kongo. Mirko then went to Dream, earning  a quick win over Tatsuya Mizuno and a no contest(illegal groin strikes) against the hulking (and terrifying) cluster of muscles that is Alistair Overeem, then another win against the towering Hong Man Choi and a return to the UFC followed shortly. As he returned, a familiar pattern returned as well. Mirko is tentative, scared of throwing punches and kicks and just doesn't seem to get a hold of the American style of MMA(Octagon, elbows strikes, no soccer kicks...etc.). Again, some fights he won, some he lost and ultimately fought out his UFC contract and called it quits(for the time being). Being the busy bee that he is, he tried his luck with a K-1 return. There he qualified and won the K-1 GP tournament and added another trophy to his collection. However, his competitive side still wanted more and a MMA returned followed. A win over Shinichi Suzukawa and a loss to Oleksiy Oliynyk kept him busy for a while before signing with Glory and there losing to Remy Bonjasky and winning against Jarrell Miller. That would mark the end of his kickboxing career and the start of his last run in MMA.



Where are they now?

Cro Cop
With 2 wins over Satoshi Ishii, Mirko resigned with UFC and avenged the loss that haunted him for years, by beating Gabriel Gonzaga with some nasty elbows. Mirko's next fight is scheduled to be against Anthony Hamilton at UFC's fight night 79 in Seoul, South Korea. He has stated that after he fights out his current UFC contract, he is retiring for good.


Fedor Emelianenko
The Russian had officially retired in 2012 and stayed that way up until a few months ago, when he announced that he is returning to MMA and wants the best competition possible. Since Bellator's Scott Coker dismissed the option of Fedor signing with the company, many are under the impression that it is only a matter of time(or formality) before it is announced that Fedor has finally signed with the UFC.





Ok, that's it from me. At first I just wanted to post a link to the fight and maybe write a sentence or two, but then I was all like "naw" and wrote all this. Hope you've enjoyed the read as much as I enjoyed writing it. Liking me on facebook won't get you a free hooker, but it will get you a free "thank you" from me. So don't be shy and click here. I now leave until our paths cross again. 

Remembering the Titans: Igor "Ice Cold" Vovchanchyn

Fellow MMA fans, I have returned. Today I decided to talk about an overlooked, old school, tough as nails, scary as fuck and dangerous as hell it self fighter. Igor "Ice Cold" Vovchanchyn.

Where it all began

Long before the modern days of MMA  even before the "golden days" of MMA in Japanese PRIDE, in the very infancy of the sport we all came to love - there was NHB fighting. It was a time where the sport was largely filled with strikers but dominated by grapplers. "Tough man" tournaments trying to prove which man is the baddest dude on the planet were popping up all over the world.  They were raw, brutal and bloody. Such tournaments happened in Ukraine. The fights were mostly "style vs style" type fights and no protection what so ever was required or enforced. No fight gloves, hand wraps, mouth guards or groin guards. It was, for the lack of a better term, legalized street fighting. Since the fights were arranged in a tournament style, in order to win the tournament, you had to fight multiple opponents in one night.

King of the Iron Fist Tournament

A young, short, stocky and quiet Ukrainian decided to test himself in the new sport and see how far can he go. Since Igor had a pretty good kickboxing record(62-2) he already had an upper hand on most fighters he faced and seeing as at the time those were mostly street level tough man, Igor made short work of his opponents. He debuted at "UCMAL: Warrior's Honour 1" tournament on October 14, 1995 and by October 11, 1998 Igor already had an MMA record of  31 wins and 2 losses! Not only is that  a lot of fights, it's not even the most impressive part of his record. Like I mentioned above, he competed in tournament style events, meaning multiple fights in one night. In those 2 years, Igor fought in 10 multiple fight-one night tournaments and 3 regular events. Most notably comes March of 1996 when Igor fought 3 times on March 1st, 3 times on March 9th and again 3 times on March 30th. Needless to say those were all wins.

                                               Igor's debut fight against Alexandr Mandrik

Die by the sword

By the time Igor came to Pride, the sport had already outgrown the grueling bare knuckle/no rules style vs style way of fighting Igor was so good at. His win streak was stopped in the year 2000 when Igor  fought Mark Coleman in Pride's "Pride GP 2000" event. By the early 2000's  Igor's decline started to take a hold of him. His fighting style was a thing of past and younger and better fighters were starting to replace the under developed fighters such as himself. He was essentially a great kickboxer with an not so great ground game.  Most notable loss coming from the then up and coming young sprout you may have heard about, Mirko Cro Cop. It didn't take much for more experienced and much bigger fighters to start taking  his disadvantages to their advantage. Even a late career resurgence with a change of weight class didn't last long as his last 2 fights were losses. Ultimately Igor retired in 2005 with a mind blowing 55-10 fight record.  

                                   Igor suffered his first(and only) knockout loss against Cro Cop

Final word

Igor was a product of a different time, a different era of fighting. At 5'8' and 195lbs he fought at heavyweight while being drastically out sized by many of his opponents. Even with that he was one of the greatest heavyweight fighers in the world at one point. His knockout of Francisco Bueno  is a thing of nightmares and Enson Inou literally almost died after his encounter with Igor. He was so good at what he did that not even fighters who out weighted him drastically or were much taller than him, stood any chance. Igor just chopped them down like trees.

Paul Varelans stood at 6 feet and 8 inches and weighted at 300 lbs, source

Fighters of today, much like Igor are a product of a different time. Some would say a worse time others would say a better time. I will say, a safer time. Modern day MMA is a highly regulated professional sport. It has moved a long way from the late 20th century raw style of NHB fighting,  Hand wraps, fighting gloves, mouth guards and groin guards are no longer "optional". They are mandatory. The way of fighting has changed, if the way of old was a mindless brawl, 21st century MMA has more resemblance to a full contact chess game. No longer do we witness fights that are one step away from being a street fight. Today's MMA fights are all about gameplans and winning strategies. Each fighter has an entire team of highly skilled professionals who each have the task of  sharpening a specific part of the fighters skill set.





I wrote this with the goal of introuducing new fans(and reminding old ones) to the greatness of  some old school legends such as Vovchanchyn. I'll try  to incoporate this more regulary in my blog writing. As per usual, you can like me on facebook. Maybe I'll throw in some free beers if you like my page, who knows. The comment sections is below, sooo drop a comment. I wanna know how to improve this blog. See you soon folks!

What's next for Ronda Rousey?

Hello fellow internet friends. Today I tell you what to expect from UFC's champion and superstar Ronda Rousey.

Ok, so if you ever watched anything MMA related in the past 5 years, you know all there is to know about Ronda Rousey. Former Olympic Judo bronze medalist turned mma fighter, turned Strikeforce champion, turned UFC champion, 12-0,  12 finishes, 11 in the first round...bla bla bla. You know the story.

Now here's the deal. Ronda has pretty much cleaned out her division and said that she wants to retire knowing she is the "greatest  fighter to ever lived"  and judging by the pace she has been fighting and how dominant she looks doing so, she can already make a case for such claim.  However, her job isn't finished just yet. She still has a couple of more fights left to do in order to be claimed the best ever. What are these fights? Who are those women?  Well, you're about to find out.

The rival

First up, we got Ronda's old nemesis. Miesha Tate. The two ladies have been at each others throats since 2012, when Ronda made her Bantamweight debut in a Strikeforce title fight against the then champion Miesha. Ronda's judo/armbar/black magic skills proved to be more than Miesha could handle and the fight ended mid way through first round via Ronda's signature move, armbar. Their paths crossed once more in the UFC when Miesha stepped up as a replacement for the injured Cat Zingano.  Though this time "cupcake" Tate lasted 3 rounds, Ronda took home yet another arm early in the third round, submitting Tate with an armbar. Now, since the loss Miesha has built up a little wins streak of her own(4 wins in 4 fights) and is now officially next in line for Ronda. Will  the third time be the charm for Miesha or will Ronda prove her dominance once again? We will find out soon enough.

                     Miesha was a on a 6 fight win streak before her defeat at the hands of Rousey

The upcoming challenger
After  the Rousey/Tate trilogy is complete the next likely candidate is the former boxing and kick-boxing champion, Holly Holm.  Even before Holm  stepped foot into the UFC octagon, rumblings about her  facing Rousey at some point were a common topic among MMA fans. With most pointing out her rich striking background as an argument as to why she is the one to beat the champion. Now that Holm is 2-0 in the octagon, many (her coach including) believe that indeed, she is next in line for who ever comes out victorious out of the Miesha/Ronda fight.

Holm with a brutal head kick ko against Allanna Jones,  source

The superfight
SIDE NOTE: Few days a go, Justino's former manager Tito Ortiz mentioned that UFC offered(and Justino accepted) this fight happening around April in Texas. However, Dana White took little time in saying that this all a complete lie and fabrication. But the story doesn't end there. Since Dana's disclaimer, Justino herself spoke about it and claim that neither she or Ortiz made this up and that the UFC  called her manager and offered them the fight. The saga continues....

Assuming everything goes as expected and Ronda beats both ladies in her standard fast and impressive fashion one fight is still left that has MMA fans all giggling like little school girls. The long awaited super fight against the 145lbs Strikeforce and Invicta champion  Christine "Cyborg" Justino. Making this fight has been proven to be a daunting task. A couple of major complications occurred over the years that made many fans lose faith at this fight ever happening. In early 2012.  Justino failed a post fight banned substance test and got her fighters license revoked for a year. In the meantime Ronda, changed weight classes and went after Strikeforce gold against Miesha Tate and eventually  became the inarguable  UFC Women's Bantamweight champion. Since then, the ladies have been calling each other out over twitter, facebook, post fight interviews, pre fight interviews and everywhere in between. Each time one of them won, the interest for the fight grew. So where is the problem? They wanna fight each other, Dana White has predicted that if the fight happens it will get up to 2,5 million PPV buys. Let's do it! Well its  not that simple....for starters. Cyborg is a very large framed woman, who in the past had trouble making 145lbs weight limit. So her argument is that Ronda should move up in weight and fight her either at catch weight of 140 lbs or either at 145lbs.

              See for your selves just how much does Justino struggle with cutting weight, starting at 3:26 .


Ronda being the champion of the biggest MMA organization in the world dismisses the notion every time it gets brought up. Claiming that if Cyborg wants to fight in the UFC, she has to come to her weight class and make the 135lbs limit.  In 2014, thing seemed to moving forward with this super fight. As it was announced that Justino  will be fighting at 135lbs. Few shorts weeks later, an injury forced  the Brazilian out of a 135lbs bout and that was the last we heard of a potential 135lbs fight for some time.  The constant back and forth bickering between Ronda and Christine gave the impression that this fight won't ever happen. But there are glimpses of hope for this fight happening. First of all Justino already has a signed contract with the UFC.  Yes, she still needs to fight at 135lbs for Invicta in order to prove that she can physically get the desired weight, but it's progress. Baby steps. Secondly, after Ronda's impressive first round ko of Bethe Correia, Justino took to twitter to announce that her next fight will 100% be at 140lbs with the goal of the fight after that being at 135lbs.
 

Good fight for Honda.My next fight is140lbs,then I hope we get a chance to give fans the WMMA fight the most violent fight in the history!

— Cris Cyborg (@criscyborg) August 2, 2015

And finally, even before Ronda's victory it was announced that Justino hired the famous MMA nutritionist, George Lockhart with the seemingly impossible task of slimming Cyborg down to 135lbs and making the super fight a reality.

The rematch tour 

Alright, now let's say the super fight doesn't happen, or happens but Ronda decides to stick around a bit longer. What then? Well...there's always the rematch tour. Her last 3 fights lasted a combined of a 1 minute and 4 seconds. So by the time Ronda faces Tate and Holm and maybe even Justino some of her past opponents will  most certainty earn a second chance of fighting against the champion.

.....aaaand I'm done. This was a quick write up, not much of  an opinion piece, more of an analysis /prediction writing. Personally I think we'll never see Ronda/Cyborg. Cyborg is huge for her weight class and Ronda won't wait forever on her to make weight nor does she have any intention of moving from her current weight class. Oh well, it is what is. Anywho...click here to like me on facebook, comment below if you agree or disagree with me....or whatever. So, until next time.... Ladies and Gentleman, Elvis has left the building. 

The heelhook from hell, a story about Rousimar Palhares

Whasap, whasap, whasaaap homies! It's yo boy, Armbar, with another edition of Armbar's mma world. As you may have noticed I'm feeling a bit "down with the hood" today(I don't even know what that means) since I just binge watched like 7eps of Ballers and suddenly I talk like I just came straight outta Compton and I'm a crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube. I'm hoping It'll wear off.

Moving along, today I'm gonna take a moment and share some thoughts regarding the currently most controversial  man in all of MMA. Rousimar Palhares. Now let's get this show started.


The Tree Stump*
Last  weekend didn't just saw Ronda Rousey make another first round, less than a minute one sided victory. Oh no. It also saw 2 former UFC welterweights fighting for World Series of Fighting's welterweight title. The two fighters in question were Strikeforce , UFC veteran Jake Shields and the reigning and defending WSOF champion, the former UFC middle&welterweight, Rousimar Palhares. Since Shields is famous for his wrestling credentials and Rousimar is infamous for his terrifying jiu jitsu, grappling fireworks were expected and boy did we get fireworks. Jake Shields was controlling the fight for solid 2 rounds while fighting off Rousimar's near endless submission attempts*. Then at a midway point of round 3 a visibly out of breath Jake went for a takedown on a fresh Palhares and...well, I'll let this gif tell the rest of the story.

An outstanding display of Jiu Jitsu was left in the shadow of Rousimar's inability to let go of the submission even after Jake Shields started tapping like his life depended on it the moment the hold was locked in. Now this unfortunate event is no accident. Palhares has a looong and very painful history of holding on to a submission for an unnecessary amount of time.



Heelhook from hell
Rousimar has been a dangerous fighter since his early fighting days. In 2007., Rousimar had his 5th professional fight against fellow Brazilian Claudio Mattos and won the fight 15 seconds into the first round with a heel hook. The heel hook left Mattos screaming in pain in the ring with medical staff tending to his leg.

                                           Coincidence or not, Mattos didn't fight again until 2009


The controversy followed "Toquinho" in his next fight against Helio Dipp jr where the referee literally had to break Rousimar's choke hold with all his might. From here it only got worse. The trend of not letting go of submission continued as his fondness for heel hooks and kneebars grew. Even though he was a highly controversial fighter, Rousimar eventually made it to the UFC with his infamy following him. Against Tomasz Drawl, the referee, again, had to pull him off Tomasz' leg as Tomasz screamed in pain. However, this time there were consequences. He was suspended for 90 days for not letting go of the submission in time. He then tried his luck in ADCC where he came in second in his weight class but as always, controversy didn't escape him. In a very weird match against David Avellan he dislocated Avellan's knee with another, horrifying and painful kneebar that left orthopedic surgeons around the world rubbing their hands in joy.

                                                                   source

His UFC career began to wobble as other fighters began to find solutions for his deadly but predictable fighting style. He stringed together a couple of losses, the most infamous loss coming from Alan Belcher. Who took the fight to Rousimar and even outgrappled him.

Alan Belcher pummeling Rousimar with some vicious ground and pound, source

Welterweight debut
Afer a short losing streak and a PED suspension, Rousimar came back with a vengeance in a lower weight class. By this time he gained infamy among the entire MMA community as a fighter that does not let go of you even if you tap, scream, yell, pray for a miracle or try casting a sleeping spell. In his fight against Mike Pierce he had a lot of eyes pointed at him. Many people wanted nothing more then a reason to punish him for his past(and present) wrong doings. Rousimar didn't disappoint them. Mike Pierce felt the full might of the tree stump's wrath when Palhares locked in a heel hook that, as always, didn't release until the referee literally had to stick his head into Palhares' grip. Punishment? Release of his UFC contract and a one year ban in professional fighting. The rocky road of redemption led Rousimar to WSOF, even though Ray Sefo(owner) ruled out the option initially, he gave the humble Brazilian a chance and a warning. Since his signing, Rousimar made short work of Steve Carl and Jon Fitch with each fight being more controversial then the last one. Thus, our story reaches full circle as we arrive at Rousimar's most recent controversial win.  Last weekend's submission over Jake Shields.


Fall from grace

He has since been stripped of his title, suspended indefinitely and will likely, given his past, get an even greater ban from the Athletic Commission. This all puts Rousimar's future as an active MMA competitor in serious jeopardy. Does he deserve "the death sentence" and be banned for life? Most of his opponents would gladly see him burn at the stake for his knee hatred. I personally, as a fan of his ruthless and nearly indefensible style of grappling, would love nothing more than to see him fight again. However the punishment must fit the crime. He is a repeated offender in a sport where every extra second a submission  is unnecessary held could have a career ending effect. MMA is all about the art of violence in a controlled, secure environment. Rousimar's fighting style relies on his brute strength, and a high level of jiu jitsu skill with a serious lack of  control and fight awareness. Which makes him a huge risk every time he enters a fight. Will he hold on to a submission for too long?Will he let go this time? Maybe he'll get so zoned out in a fight that he will crank one of his deadly submission just hard enough and long enough to cause permanent damage to a fighters joint.

                                        
                      Frank Mir demonstrates what happens if a joint lock isn't stopped in time

As much as I hate to admit it, Rousimar just doesn't make a strong enough argument to be allowed to fight again. His former coach Murilo Bustamante, talked about taking Rousimar to specialist in order to fix his "zoning out" problem and having many arguments with him over not letting go of submissions in time. Indicating that perhaps even given the best effort, Palhares just does not accept the existence of a problem. Which is unacceptable in modern day contact sport where fighters get injured all the time even without the further assistance of other fighters such as Rousimar Palhares.

* His nickname, "Toquinho" is Portuguese for "little tree stump". He earned his nickname because of his short stature, very muscular physique and wide frame. 

* I'd like to address that there was also the controversy of Rousimar alleged eye gouging of Jake Shields. I didn't mention that in my article because, you can't see clearly enough what exactly was going on.  Rousimar was lifting Jakes head to sneak in short elbow from the bottom and I'm guessing made accidental contact with Jake's eyes. Jake complained to the referee who only warned Palhares. Regardless, he has been accused of doing so and Ray Sefo and people with less bias then me ruled that he did gouge Jake's eyes. Here's the fight vid, judge by yourself.

That's all from me. I have 2 more articles, locked and ready to go. Polishing them up as we speak. As per usual, leave a comment bellow,  like me on Facebook and when you're done doing that. Just re read my old stuff. In the words of Porky Pig, that's all folks!