UFC President Dana White said that MMA legend Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovich has signed a three-fight contract extension with the Ultimate Fighting Championship after a very thorough meeting with UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta sometime last week.
Cro Cop’s future in the UFC was placed in major jeopardy when it was reported that Cro Cop, after making a verbal agreement with Dana White to fight at UFC 99, instead signed to fight for DREAM Fighting Championship for the rest of 2009.
What’s bizarre about this story is that DREAM confirmed that Filipovic would fight on the July 20th, DREAM.10 show against Mighty Mo (Saila-Mou Siligia). I’ve heard from one source that the fight has since been scrapped after Mirko signed with the UFC, but I can’t confirm that just yet. We do know for sure that Cro Cop is under contractual obligation to fight Junior Dos Santos at UFC 103. But again, the story gets even STRANGER as the UFC recently released the poster for UFC 103 and neither that fight nor Cro Cop were featured, despite it being the HEAVILY rumored main event. Continue Reading »
In Japan during the early years of PRIDE Fighting Championships, no star shined brighter than that of Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba made his name as one of the big names from Takada’s UWFI pro wrestling promotion – a company that relied on realistic “shoot-style” bouts that were meant to look more realistic than New Japan or All Japan (many in fact thought they WERE shoots).
When Sakuraba entered the PRIDE ring, he became instantly famous as the very first home grown “pro wrestler” in the company to fully adapt to Mixed Martial Arts and become one of the most talented grapplers in the game. Besides that, his innovation to use never-before seen tactics to confuse opponents helped him score victories over Carlos Newton, Vitor Belfort, and every single member of the legendary Gracie Jiu-Jitsu family that he was pitted against. When he beat Royce Gracie after 90 grueling minutes – he became a hero.
But alas, while he had grown to that hero in eyes of the Japanese, he wasn’t really the best. Sakuraba’s arch rival in PRIDE other than the Gracies was a young, hungry, vicious fighter from Brazil named Wanderlei Silva. While most Brazillians were known for their expertise on the ground game, Silva was known for his explosiveness, rage, and powerful Muay Thai attacks. At PRIDE 13, Sakuraba was pummeled by Silva in about a minute and a half of the first round. The rematch quickly came around at PRIDE 17 and this time, it was to crown the first PRIDE Middleweight Champion. This time, Sakuraba actually made it to the end of the first round, but then realized he had a broken collarbone and the doctors stopped the fight and awarded it to Wanderlei Silva. Continue Reading »
Personally I wouldn’t want to be choked out by either.
This is from PRIDE/WAMMA Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko’s appearance on Sports Science. A huge plethora of stars from MMA including Randy Couture, Quinton Jackson, and Bas Rutton have appeared on the program. The studies found here are amazing and make you truly appreciate how frightening these folks are.
I had the privilege of receiving a last second invite by Stevie J (Angry Marks) to help him interview author of the fantastic book Total MMA, Jonathan Snowden.
Stevie J did a great job with running the interview while I was on my cell phone driving home. As you’ll be able to tell, both Stevie and I read the book cover to cover and both enjoyed it thoroughly. Snowden was a great guest and answered everything we threw at him.
At UFC’s upcoming UFC 93 Pay Per View, a legend of MMA will clash with a man who at one time was thought of as pound for pound the best. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua returns after over a year’s absense to face on Mark Coleman in a rematch from their infamous PRIDE showdown at PRIDE 21 – Dreamers. I’m not sure if there is still bad blood from something that happened years ago, but if there is, I wouldn’t be surprised.
After a freak accident where Rua broke his arm, Coleman lost a little bit of control and started to uncontrollably scream and toss referees around. Some speculated this was one of Coleman’s “Roid Rages”. This caused mayhem as PRIDE officials and members from both the Chute Boxe Academy (Rua’s group) and Hammerhouse Gym (Coleman’s group) dashed into the ring and had an absolutely insane pull-apart brawl. At the time PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva, along with Shogun’s brother Murilo “Ninja” Rua, Pele, and a horde of Chute Boxe guys almost went to fisticuffs with the likes of Phil Baroni and Gary Goodridge from Hammerhouse. Shortly after in the locker room, Coleman apologized to an angry Silva for his actions and this near-fight was seemingly put to rest. PRIDE was always about the pageantry of pro wrestling with a cast of legitimate tough guys, but this was crazy even for them.
Today on Fight Game Blog Video Vault – we present the pre-fight Video Package, the fight in it’s entirety, as well as the aftermath. I personally can’t wait for these guys to lock horns in Ireland in a couple weeks.
I had the privilege of receiving a last second invite by Stevie J (
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