Roy Nelson willing to trade with Mirko?

**SCInferno** · Posted On: 10/29/2011 9:35pm

You'd think I'd be used to it, but it still gets to me every time he loses. I don't even feel like watching the rest of UFC.

**CNagy** · Posted On: 10/29/2011 11:19pm

Goodbye, Cro Cop. You had a great career that I will always think upon fondly, repeating the words: "right leg, hospital; left leg, cemetery."

***TaeBo_Master*** · Posted On: 10/30/2011 3:55am

I, too, will always remember Cro Cop fondly. He helped me truly fall in love with the sport off MMA, rather than the spectacle that was a lot of the early UFC. I will always remember his good years.

But he's had a long career, and is getting old. The fight game is not kind to aging. I think with seeing Couture fight until he was nearly 50, many fans forget that for most in this sport, "old" starts around 35. Still, Mirko was one of the best to ever step into the ring, and I hope he is remembered that way.

**SCInferno** · Posted On: 10/30/2011 1:29pm

I just hope he stays retired from fighting...though I would love to see him stick around and be a commentator or a trainer or something...

**George-Jitsu** · Posted On: 10/31/2011 9:08am

Personally, I think that Cro cop would be 10 times the fighter he is today if he would have stuck to K-1 instead of switching to MMA. To me, it seems that pure stylists end their carrers better and more skilled than when they started. MMA fighters tend to end their carrers broken and battered because they spread their skills out too thin.

**CNagy** · Posted On: 10/31/2011 9:48pm

I actually don't think it makes much of a difference with Cro Cop. He hasn't lost by submission since 2003 when he was armbarred by Nogueira. His matches have essentially been striking contests. If I had to blame something for the way Cro Cop's career ended, I would say that it started with the brutal headkick knockout by Gonzaga. It really seemed to me like after that the killer instinct had an undercurrent of caution, he wasn't stalking down and destroying people like the Cro Cop of old. And each subsequent knockout he suffered just worsened the situation.

**hapkido_keith** · Posted On: 10/31/2011 11:40pm

Originally Posted by CNagy

If I had to blame something for the way Cro Cop's career ended, I would say that it started with the brutal headkick knockout by Gonzaga.

I think that head kick also had detrimental effects on Gonzaga's career, thrusting him into a title shot before he was ready. But Cro Cop died in the Octagon that night. The guy who continued to get fights may have been named Mirko Filipović, but it wasn't Cro Cop.