This is from
www.mmaontap.com Strikeforce and EliteXC have reached a deal which will allow them to co-promote cards on Showtime. Showtime will do a joint broadcast in April when Frank Shamrock and Phil Baroni fight in Strikeforce.
Also from
http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news_detail.php?nid=3204THE CRO COP MYSTIQUE
By Loretta Hunt
The arrival of heavyweight Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic to the Ultimate Fighting Championship last Saturday could possibly be looked at in future years as the turning point for mixed martial arts in America.
At first, it appeared Zuffa LLC. was making no attempts to hide the fact they had swayed the Croatian striker away from what has been regarded, in recent years, as the number one MMA promotion in the world– PRIDE Fighting Championships. Curiously, the 2006 Open-Weight Champion entered the Mandalay Bay Events Center to the familiar sound of the beating drums of the juggernaut Japanese promotion. (UFC president Dana White would later proclaim Cro Cop picked the music himself.)
Patches of the nearly 11,000 in attendance rose in salute, the bodies swathed in their hero’s signature red-and-white checkers, Croatian flags waving with pride.
The former K-1 kickboxer turned PRIDE Open-Weight Champion and now instant UFC heavyweight contender did what was expected of him, UFC president White said afterwards, dismantling undefeated challenger Eddie Sanchez (8-1) with an array of punches and kicks, before taking mount and getting the stoppage with only 30 seconds left on the first round clock.
At the post-fight press conference, White addressed Filipovic’s absence from the podium as “fucking frustrating,” saying he and his 2-year, six-fight acquisition had already “butted heads” on the subject.
Not so ironically, it iwill be Cro Cop’s reclusive ways that will attract more of the curious fan’s attention to him. The UFC has always wanted a stone-faced assassin and the mystique he wields will make him that much more tempting to avoid.
In a country where most fighters thrive on getting interviewed, the rarity of Cro Cop’s voice into a microphone will garner him the most notice of all.
One person who did get to interact with Filipovic and his entourage was referee John McCarthy.
McCarthy says Filipovic’s manager Ken Imai approached him at the event’s weigh-ins, and tucked behind a curtain, away from the eye of some 1,000 spectators on the other side of it, Cro Cop took his first steps into the Octagon.
“He was a very humble and straightforward guy,” says McCarthy, who went over Nevada’s rules variations with the man only familiar with the roped square and a seemingly more brutal arsenal of finishes.
“His big thing was if a fighter went down, he wanted to know where he could he kick and stomp,” explains McCarthy. The 13-year veteran official instructed Filipovic that stomps were illegal, but axe kicks (which are thrown on an angle and not directly downward to the body) were not.
“He asked, ‘If he did an elbow that was illegal what would happen?’” says McCarthy. “He was very pleasant the whole time. I just think he likes to keeps close to himself and those close to him.”
Filipovic’s knowledge of McCarthy hints the foreign fighter had years of UFC viewing under his belt. “He told me, ‘I remember watching you in 1995 when I was an amateur boxer. You were in the cage with two crazy men. I guess now I’m a crazy man’” McCarthy recalls.
And what did McCarthy glean from the dangerous kickboxer’s performance Saturday night?
“The Octagon is a bigger surface area,” says McCarthy. “I think Mirko was using the same footwork he’s always used and that caused some problems for him when he tried to cut Sanchez off.”
The motivation to improve appears to be there. Before leaving for his 18-hour journey back to his homeland, Filipovic asked McCarthy for a recommendation to import a cage to him there.
Filipovic has been announced to fight again at April 21’s UFC event in Manchester, England. An opponent has not been named.
POSTED -- 02/08/07
