UFC 137, which is headlined by the welterweight bout between BJ Penn and Nick Diaz and the heavyweight bout between Matt Mitrione and Cheick Kongo,
airs live on Pay-Per-View from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las
Vegas, NV at 9pm ET / 6pm PT. F…
UFC 137, which is headlined by the welterweight bout between BJ Penn and Nick Diaz and the heavyweight bout between Matt Mitrione and Cheick Kongo,
airs live on Pay-Per-View from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las
Vegas, NV at 9pm ET / 6pm PT. Fans can also tune in for two televised
prelims at 8pm ET / 5pm PT, and those who “like” the UFC on Facebook can
see the rest of the prelim bouts at 5:50 pm ET / 2:50 pm PT.
If you’re not a fan of lightweight prospect Dan Downes, you’re not a fan of fighting. There, I said it, and if you’re wondering why, all you need to do is look at his June match with Jeremy Stephens. 8-1 entering the bout, Downes was dwarfed in e…
If you’re not a fan of lightweight prospect Dan Downes, you’re not a fan of fighting.
There, I said it, and if you’re wondering why, all you need to do is look at his June match with Jeremy Stephens. 8-1 entering the bout, Downes was dwarfed in experience by the veteran from Iowa, yet he took the fight, on short notice no less, and stood in there with the “Lil’ Heathen” for three rounds.
Yes, he lost a unanimous decision. But there are losses and there is losing the way Downes did, with a defiance that said you can cut me, you can hurt me, you can hit me, but I’m going to keep moving forward. If you filmed the bout in black and white, buried it in a time capsule and said it was from 1956, no one who found it in the future would have blinked an eye. And that’s not even mentioning the kimura attempt that caused everyone except Downes to cringe.
“Part of it is that basic thing where you always think that no matter position you get in, you still think ‘I can win. I’ll get out of this, get up, and I’ll win,’” he recalls. “You never just want to quit. I don’t know if I have a high pain tolerance, but I just keep going. Do you ever see Chris Rock talking about how people who want congratulations or respect for things they’re supposed to do? (Laughs) That’s how I feel. When I step into that cage, I have a duty to myself, my coaches, my teammates, the fans and the UFC. I have an obligation to go out there and give everything I’ve got. I’m not going out there to half-ass it – ‘well, it’s close enough, I’ll just stop now and live to fight another day.’ I still knew I had more to give and I wasn’t willing to quit. He was gonna have to actually rip it off and take it with him, and even then I’d still probably try to do something, but I’d assume the ref would stop it by then.”
He chuckles.
“The whole time, I was going ‘I can do this, I can do this. There’s no problem.’ You’ve just got to focus on the task at hand and still try to win that fight.”
Downes didn’t win that night, and his record dropped to 8-2, with losses coming to Stephens and via submission to Chris Horodecki. But in the process, he gained a respect that sometimes goes even further than just another notch in the win column. He was a UFC fighter.
“The biggest thing I got from that fight is confidence,” said Downes. “I’m in the UFC, this is the pinnacle of mixed martial arts, and I’m thinking, seriously, have I just been fooling these people the last couple years? How did I get here? So there’s still that ‘do I belong? This is the UFC, and I’m still Dan Downes.’ (Laughs) But in that fight, I went toe-to-toe with Stephens and I never felt outclassed. Yeah he beat me and caught me in different things, and I made errors, but I was never in a position where I’m like, ‘I’m in totally over my head, this is scary.’ So realizing that I can do this and that I belong here, that’s done a lot for me.”
And about that no tapping to the kimura thing, “I don’t know what it is – it’s either being stubborn, or stupid, or being a sore loser, but I know that about myself. When I get in that position, I’m not gonna quit. They say stuff like ‘you just live so you could look yourself in the mirror the next morning,’ and I’d much rather wake up with a broken nose or something else than look there and be like ‘I quit.’ And it’s not some BS masculinity thing. I’m not doing it to say I’m a big tough guy; if you want to tap, then tapping is essentially quitting. It’s crying uncle, and maybe my threshold before saying uncle is a lot higher than a lot of other people’s.”
What’s crazy about that whole sequence is that it’s just one of a million different scenarios that can happen in any mixed martial arts bout, and fighters have to be prepared for the consequences of each. That takes endless training and drilling, but also the presence of mind to stay calm in the midst of a situation that would cause us civilians outside the cage to panic. The 25-year old Downes, who has been training in one way, shape, or form since 2004, is – like all MMA fighters – still learning, but with the help of renowned coach Duke Roufus and the Roufusport team, he’s also starting to get things down to the point where they’re becoming automatic.
“It’s almost like you’re in a time vortex,” he explains. “Everything takes forever, but it’s also going by really fast. So you let instinct take over – you get there, I know I gotta do this, that, move, and you just try to do it. I remember when he (Stephens) got me in that (kimura) lock, and I heard a couple pops, and once that happens, I’m like ‘screw it, that already happened, I might as well see how far I can ride this thing.’ It’s that muscle memory. I just read this book (Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain) by this neuroscientist (David Eagleman), talking about how our brain has these ‘zombie processes,’ basically stuff we do without really thinking about it. It’s kind of like you train yourself to react that way. That’s the ideal. You want to react in such a way that you don’t even have to think about it, it just becomes automatic, and that’s part of it.”
Around this time in the article, it’s almost customary to recount that Milwaukee’s Downes is a Marquette University grad with a double major in International Affairs and German who interned for the United States Secret Service and also worked for the Department of Commerce. It’s done to remind everyone that Downes is not your typical fighter, but in reality, he’s not your typical fighter because he could probably go on to do anything he chooses for a profession, but because he’s made it here on pure grit and determination.
“I’m not a natural athlete,” he said. “And a lot of times I see that the guys that are the best athletes – the strongest, the fastest, the best – they quit easier because most guys like that, everything came easy to them. This has never come easy to me. I’ve won fights and I’ve won some easier than others, but my whole MMA career has never been easy. I’ve kinda had to work twice as hard for half the results that some guys get. I’ve been tested ever since I started, and sometimes I might feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, but that’s why I do it. It’s being defiant. Why does man want to fly? Because we’re not supposed to.”
In the great scheme of things, Dan Downes was not the guy who was supposed to be a professional fighter. But when everything else came easy, fighting was that boulder he couldn’t resist trying to push up the mountain.
“School always came easy to me,” he admits. “It just did. I worked hard in school, but I kinda coasted through a lot of things and still did pretty well. That’s not to say I don’t value my education, but you don’t appreciate the things that come easy. I worked so hard and fought tooth and nail, literally and figuratively, to get here, so it feels like an accomplishment. Even when I played rugby in high school and in everything I did, I just wanted to go to that next level. It (fighting) is a sport and it takes skill and it’s not just about fighting in the sense that two cavemen are fighting, but it’s definitely a more personal sport. If you beat me in Horse or I lose a basketball game, yeah, it’s embarrassing, but it’s because he dribbled a rubber ball and got it in a basket better than you. This is fighting. This is someone beat you up and punched you in the face in front of your family. And that’s the part of it that makes it so much more of an accomplishment. It’s not that I take pride in beating someone up or hurting them; it’s this primal kind of gut instinct and you’re leaving everything out there. We’re not fighting for our lives, but we’re still fighting someone and putting our body on the line.”
And he’ll do it again this Saturday night in Las Vegas against The Ultimate Fighter season 13 finalist Ramsey Nijem. It’s a nice clash of styles, with Downes pitting his standup game against Nijem’s wrestling-based attack, but when you take away all the strategies and techniques, it’s a fight, and that’s all that really matters to the Wisconsin product these days and every day.
“I’m not the flashiest,” he said. “No one’s ever gonna look at me and be like ‘I bet he was prom king.’ (Laughs) But what I may lack in bodybuilder potential or the male model aspect, if someone called me and said ‘we need you to fight next week, but it’s gonna be a boxing fight,’ I’ll do it. I’m gonna go there and I might get beat up, but I’m gonna keep coming.”
“Get up!”Brandon Vera heard the pleas from his cornermen over the roar of the Las Vegas crowd at the MGM Grand, but it really didn’t matter. He almost wanted to yell back, “I know I’m supposed to get up, but I can’t. This guy is strong as #…
“Get up!”
Brandon Vera heard the pleas from his cornermen over the roar of the Las Vegas crowd at the MGM Grand, but it really didn’t matter. He almost wanted to yell back, “I know I’m supposed to get up, but I can’t. This guy is strong as #$%$.”
That guy, Brazilian light heavyweight contender Thiago Silva, had pinned Vera to the canvas, leaving him no space to escape. It got so bad for “The Truth” that Silva began taunting him with slaps, even playing drums on his back for a spell. When it was over, not only had Vera lost the fight, but he was embarrassed, and was about to lose his job.
“It was weird, man,” he said. “After that fight I just felt confused. Nobody since the sixth grade had ever big brothered me, and that’s pretty much what Thiago did. Guys asked me what happened and I was like ‘man, I don’t know. He was #$%$ing strong.’ That’s the only thing I could think of.”
As it turned out, there was a reason for that, as Silva failed his post-fight drug test, revealing later that he used a urine adulterant to mask injections he took containing substances banned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to reportedly help with a back injury. Silva’s unanimous decision win was changed to a no contest, and Vera was welcomed back into the UFC fold.
How’s that for a crazy turn of events?
“I don’t even think it set in,” said Vera of getting cut for the organization he had been competing in since 2005. “The only thing I can compare it to is a death in the family. It happened, but did it really? And I still wasn’t over the shock when they hired me back.”
Not surprisingly, Vera soured on Silva when the results of the failed test were revealed, but before that, the San Diegan didn’t hold any grudges.
“After the fight, I was still confused, and I saw him in the hotel, I gave him a hug and said ‘Good fight man.’ I can’t be mad, he just whupped my ass, so I gave him the respect. But when I found out (about the failed test), I was like, ‘what a piece of s**t.’”
You would assume that all’s well that ends well, but even after being reinstated, Vera was left with the memory of a fight in which he got taken down and dominated by a fighter known primarily as a striker, and there were still his previous two losses to Jon Jones and Randy Couture. So there were issues to be dealt with, and the 34-year old addressed them over the course of an 8,500 mile cross country road trip in which he taught seminars and got his mojo back.
“I can’t explain it,” he said. “Being fired and hired back and then driving around the US, 8500 miles, I think I got it back. I think everything settled back into place, and I’m where I need to be.”
Add in a trip to Lloyd Irvin’s gym back east to prepare for his UFC 137 bout against Eliot Marshall, work with the wrestling team at Old Dominion University, and the arrest of a man believed to be the mastermind of a 2008 home invasion involving Vera and Irvin, and the light heavyweight finally found some semblance of peace. It’s something he hadn’t experienced since before his 2008 loss against Keith Jardine, when the home invasion took place and when he was considered a serious title threat. And no one considered Vera more of a title threat than the man himself.
“My ego got in the way,” he explained. “It started getting in the way of me becoming a complete MMA fighter. I stopped going to Master Lloyd’s, and there were a lot of little mental things too. Things started changing from the Jardine fight on and I didn’t go back to train at Master Lloyd’s since the Jardine fight. I had a couple life-changing events happen right before the Jardine fight and during the fight and I honestly believe that MMA fell off the list. It wasn’t number one on my list anymore. It became number three in my life. I’m always down to knock somebody out or go punch somebody, but I wasn’t pushing myself extra. I would go to practice and I’d be looking at the time – oh God, how many more rounds we got? And now, I’m there until coach says ‘time.’ Now, I feel like I did when I first came in the sport, and I realize that I have a lot to learn and I’m open to learning again. I’m back in school and back on the grind.”
It’s almost like a husband being with his wife for years and years and starting to forget the little things. So when she walks away one day and the husband wonders why, it’s because this new guy brings flowers and treats her the way the husband once did. Vera started neglecting his sport, and it left him in the dust.
“I would agree one hundred percent,” he said. “There’s no other excuse, nothing else I can say that fit besides it fell back to number three, and I just took it for granted. Between the guys getting caught for the home invasion, me driving 8,500 miles across the US, a lot of time to think, and teaching seminars and being fired and rehired back by the UFC, that’s a lot of groundbreaking stuff for one person.”
But now he’s back to business, settled in, and ready for what has to be a must win bout against Marshall. In the process of the last few months, he’s also gotten away from the comforts of home and of his home gym, the Alliance Training Center, and revisited his roots, both literally and figuratively, as his trip back east has also prompted him to get back to the ground game he has neglected over the years.
“I’ve got my wrestling back in order,” said Vera, 11-5, 1 NC. “When I first started fighting, my wrestling was so good that I could stand up with people because you could never take me down, or if you did, I got right back up. I got to the point in my career where I just wanted to stand up and wanted to force everybody to stand up with me, and for a little while everybody did want to find out if they could stand with me. Now, nobody wants to find out anymore.”
So he’s had to adjust his game to adapt to the new MMA landscape. What he hasn’t adjusted are his expectations – he’s still shooting to be the best 205-pound fighter on the planet.
“This is what I was doing when I was kicking everybody’s ass and talking s**t, and this is where I’m at now,” said Vera. “My mouth is running again and I’m back out in the world doing my thing and doing what I should have been doing since Day One. I don’t know why MMA took a backseat to whatever else it did in my life, but it’s not anymore. I understand that this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, and there’s no way I could be flipping burgers or selling cars or doing anything else. I’m supposed to be fighting; I’m supposed to have that damn title around my waist, and every time I watch (UFC light heavyweight champion Jon) Jones fight, it’s good motivation to watch him kick somebody’s ass or do his thing in the ring. It’s really good motivation. It makes me so hungry.”
He’ll need that hunger this Saturday night if he wants to keep his UFC dreams alive, and he has no intention of ever leaving again.
“Everybody’s seen me at my highs, they’ve seen me at my lows, and everybody wants to see the story continue, and I’m not ready for it to be done yet,” said Vera. “It’s been a rough ride, peaks and valleys, but I told everybody, don’t blink and don’t stop believing, because I’m here.”
With a seemingly endless entourage, a hungry legion of reporters documenting his every move, and even many he doesn’t actually make, boxing’s pound-for-pound king, Manny Pacquiao, exists in the middle of a hurricane that can veer out of control and…
With a seemingly endless entourage, a hungry legion of reporters documenting his every move, and even many he doesn’t actually make, boxing’s pound-for-pound king, Manny Pacquiao, exists in the middle of a hurricane that can veer out of control and become destructive at any second.
But that’s the way the Filipino icon likes it, and you get the impression that if everything was calm around him, he wouldn’t perform quite the way he does in the ring. After watching the Nick Diaz show over the last month, it’s easy to feel the same way.
With his almost perpetual scowl (though there is some photo evidence of him smiling this week in Las Vegas), it looks like Diaz is only happy when he’s unhappy or when he feels that the world is against him. And this isn’t a new development; it’s one that’s been going on for years, subtly when he was in the UFC the first time from 2003 to 2006, and even more so in subsequent years. So when he no-showed the two pre-fight press conferences to promote his UFC 137 title bout against welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and then got pulled from the fight, it was the perfect chip to put back on his shoulder.
But as he was brought back into the fold to face BJ Penn (a bout elevated to main event status when St-Pierre injured his knee and was forced to withdraw from a replacement fight with Carlos Condit), it put the spotlight squarely on Stockton’s finest again, and after trending on Twitter for showing up 45 minutes late to a recent media teleconference, he finally began speaking his mind on the whole topic of accessibility, responsibility, and the most important thing of all, the fight.
“I’ve just done my best to try not to focus on what’s going on and just try to live every day like it’s not a really a big deal because I don’t know what’s going to happen with me,” said Diaz when asked about the turmoil of recent weeks. “But it’s not going to make a difference whether or not I whine or cry about it or panic to get things done; I’m just going to do what I always do and train and when it’s time to fight I go fight and that really depends on whether or not I’m ready. And that’s really about me, it’s not about whatever’s going on in the world or whatever, who I’m fighting, who I’m not fighting. I’m not really going to have a choice on that, my job is to fight, so I have to fight when I’m told to fight and that’s why I do what I do, and that’s what I do well.”
He certainly does. 11-1 with 1 no contest since ending his first UFC stint in 2006 with back-to-back wins over Josh Neer and Gleison Tibau, Diaz has turned into a fighting and finishing machine outside the Octagon, where he only showed glimpses of the fighter he has become. His opponent this week, Penn, calls him the best boxer in MMA, and that’s coming from a fighter who had the same praise put on him by renowned trainer Freddie Roach. And that’s not even to mention his black belt level jiu-jitsu game, his unorthodox punches in bunches style, his cardio, and his chin. If he has any weakness at this point, it’s that his lone loss in the last five years (to KJ Noons) came via cuts.
That’s the good news. The bad news is watching Diaz squirm in his initial blast of the media spotlight, immediately becoming defensive when asked about missing his press obligations, and then even claiming that the Penn fight is an even tougher one for him because they had trained together previously.
“I’m not happy about it at all,” said Diaz. “I’m fighting a guy who’s my friend or was my friend and now I’m fighting this guy. I’m set to fight, assigned to fight certain guy (St-Pierre), I thought we had a deal.”
“This fight is a completely different fight,” he continued later on in the teleconference. “And I think BJ’s a lot better fighter to be honest with you. On the technical standpoint, he’s got much better jiu-jitsu, boxing, and even on a technical level, I wouldn’t count him out.”
“But I’m going to deal; this is hard times just like it’s been, but I’m not expecting it to get any easier. So this definitely doesn’t make anything easier for me. I don’t like fighting people I already know or I’ve already met or trained with or have video on me.”
All of these distractions, and all the tentative talk about fighting a respected former training partner could shoot up red flags for 99.9% of the fighters out there. But not for Diaz. In Thursday’s pre-fight press conference, the 28-year old seemed loose, tossed out a couple one-liners, and even cracked a smile or two. Why the switch? Maybe it’s because the hard work is done, the “beauty pageant,” as he calls it, is almost over, and now he can get down to fighting.
“I’ve been there putting in 100%,” he said. “I always said that’s what’s important. You’ve got people that want to see fights, they want to see good fights, they want to see a good fighter and that’s what I’m trying to bring to the table.”
When all is said and done, that’s what matters, right? Not the pre-fight hype, but the fight. Perhaps the best line Diaz has had recently was when he was questioned about his late arrival to the UFC 137 call and said in an exasperated tone, as if the rest of us just didn’t get it, “you gotta know I’m not sitting here with my phone waiting for a call; I’m waiting for some training. I’m trying to get some relax time before I have to go back to another four hours of training. I’m training hard.”
And when he’s trained hard, he fights hard, whether it’s against a friend or a bitter enemy. On Saturday night, in the eye of his own unique hurricane, Nick Diaz will finally be at peace. It’s D-Day, and the only person he has to talk to in the Octagon is BJ Penn.
“I fight harder than these guys man,” he said. “I fight harder than these guys, I look better than these guys, I do better than these guys and that’s why. And I don’t get no help and I don’t worry about no help. So that’s what takes up all my time, training and trying to become the best in the world here, all right? That’s what you’re dealing with here. The whole world out there, ain’t nobody can beat me.”
A week before his professional MMA debut on November 27, 2010, Dustin Jacoby wasn’t taking things easy in his Illinois home, keeping his conditioning on point before he faced Dan McGlasson in St. Louis. Instead, he was in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in f…
A week before his professional MMA debut on November 27, 2010, Dustin Jacoby wasn’t taking things easy in his Illinois home, keeping his conditioning on point before he faced Dan McGlasson in St. Louis. Instead, he was in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in front of an arena full of screaming fans, taking everything in before his teammate, Brian Foster, stepped into the Octagon against Matt Brown at UFC 123.
But this wasn’t a trip to the UFC as a fan. This was a scouting trip, one prompted by his coach, Marc Fiore.
“He said ‘I want you to come along because you’re gonna be in this position before you know it,’” said Jacoby, recalling his coach’s words. “And this is a week before my pro debut.”
The Fort Morgan, Colorado native saw Foster submit Brown that night, and a week later he got his own win, stopping McGlasson via strikes at 2:09 of the first round. And less than a year later, Fiore’s words proved prophetic, as the unbeaten (6-0) Jacoby will make his UFC debut this weekend against Clifford Starks.
So don’t expect him to be rattled by the bright lights of Las Vegas.
“It (being around at UFC 123) makes it a lot easier and reminds me that this is just another day at the office, another opportunity to go out, perform, and do my job,” said the 23-year old middleweight. “Coach (Fiore) tells me all the time, people get into the UFC and they think that everything has to change. But as professional athletes, we should already be doing all the right things anyway. So nothing else changes. All it is is just another fight.”
It’s a phrase you hear all the time from debuting UFC fighters, but many do get caught up in the first time jitters. Yet despite his age, Jacoby appears to have a mature approach not just to MMA, but to sports in general, and that may come down to his past athletic life as a high school and college quarterback, playing for four years at Culver-Stockton College and Quincy University. So he’s heard the roar of the crowd, and the boos as well.
“I think it (playing quarterback) helps out tremendously,” said Jacoby. “It’s kind of a gift I was blessed with, and I think one of my biggest strengths going into a fight is just being able to stay poised and to keep my composure and to not let the excitement and the pressure take over my emotions and make me do things that I ordinarily wouldn’t do. I think it’s something that’s been instilled in me since Day One.”
“Thrilled to death” about being brought into the UFC less than a year into his career, Jacoby has had a chance to see that poise tested even before arriving in Las Vegas this week. Originally scheduled to take on former Ultimate Fighter competitor Brad Tavares, Jacoby saw his fight with the Hawaiian elevated to the main card when UFC 137’s main event between Georges St-Pierre and Carlos Condit got removed due to an injury suffered by the champion. The turn of events stunned Jacoby – in a good way.
“I broke out in a sweat, I was hopping up and down,” he laughs.
But days later, Jacoby was back on the preliminary portion of the card, and with a new opponent, as a Tavares injury took him out of commission and opened the door for the unbeaten Starks (7-0) to step in. The Illinois product took everything in stride though, and he expects to be on top of things on Saturday night.
“I’ve always showed up on gameday my entire life,” he said. “I’ve been a competitor since I was a little kid and I’ve never not showed up on gameday. I’ve always been a guy my team’s looked up to, I’ve always been considered the team leader, and everybody else around me, I make them rise to my level. I know I’m gonna go out there and rock that moment, win or lose. The reality of the sport is that two guys get in the cage and one person’s gonna come out with their hand raised. So win or lose, I have no doubt in my mind that I’m gonna put on a performance, and I’m capable of doing that each and every time I step into the Octagon. I think I’m gonna impress some people.”
It’s a confident approach, one that grew from hours in the gym, not only with Fiore, but with former training partners such as Matt Hughes and Robbie Lawler. And if you survive running through that gauntlet, you’ll pretty much be ready for anything.
“I’ve rolled with those guys, I’ve learned a lot from them, and Hughes was very big on the mental game,” said Jacoby. “He says mental weakness, and just weakness overall, is a disease. And he would really push us in practice. He wanted to see the guys who were weak and who wanted to give up and who were slacking and he’d make us go even harder just to get those guys off the mat. Working with those guys made me realize that I can be on this level, I can do this, and I can compete.”
And if there’s anyone who knows about competing on Saturday, it’s Dustin Jacoby.
When you first think of Mirko Cro Cop, the first vision may be of the merciless stare that intimidated so many opponents even before the opening bell rang, or the left kick to the head that has been immortalized as “cemetery,” as in his classic lin…
When you first think of Mirko Cro Cop, the first vision may be of the merciless stare that intimidated so many opponents even before the opening bell rang, or the left kick to the head that has been immortalized as “cemetery,” as in his classic line “right leg hospital, left leg cemetery.” Nostalgic isn’t usually an adjective attached to the former PRIDE superstar, but as he conducted an interview before his UFC 137 bout with Roy Nelson, he made sure to point out a very special anniversary coming along in 2012.
“Next year in June, it will be exactly 20 years since the first fight in my career,” said Cro Cop. “It was in the Croatian national junior boxing championship.”
Just 17, the native of Vinkovci was on the verge of fulfilling a dream he had harbored since he was a child to compete in the ring, but he had no idea that nearly 20 years later he would still be competing as an icon of the sport he eventually migrated to, mixed martial arts.
“It was 1992, the first time I ever entered the ring,” he recalled. “But I started training much longer before that. I was nine or 10. I trained myself in my garage, but I trained every day, sometimes twice a day, without any club behind me. In the part of Croatia I was in, it was a very small village without any clubs, and nothing existed, not even karate. It was just me in my old garage and a crazy, crazy wish and a crazy will.”
And he was good. Very good. Cro Cop was a raw talent with power and determination and after a successful run as an amateur boxer, kickboxing beckoned, and soon he realized that fighting was not only a passion, but a way out.
“I think it was 1995, I came to Zagreb from my village, which is around 200 miles away, and without a dollar in my pocket, I was more hungry than full,” he said. “I knew the sport was the only way for me to swim out from that misery and in a way to save my family, to save my mother, and to earn some more money. If I decided to work in the police and just that, I would be sentenced to work for five to six hundred dollars per month, so I would be surviving from the first to the first every month to get my money. The sport was the only way for me to run out from the misery. And that was a true motive for me. At that point, I didn’t want to be famous, I just wanted to make some money.”
He made his money, became famous, and also built a legacy that won’t be tarnished by anything that happens on Saturday night or beyond. One of the most feared strikers in MMA history, Cro Cop never wrested the PRIDE heavyweight title from champions Fedor Emelianenko or “Minotauro” Nogueira, but he did win the 2006 Openweight Grand Prix tournament, which is likely the crowning achievement of his career. His UFC career has not gone as well, as he’s only managed a 4-5 record in nine Octagon outings, a slate which he finds unacceptable.
“To tell you the truth, in my own eyes, I feel ashamed that I’ve collected five losses in the UFC,” he said. “Reasons are not important now. Who cares for the reasons? But I’ve got to be honest to myself. I trained hard, I was always professional, but some circumstances happened and sometimes it gives alibis in my own eyes. I don’t expect alibis in the eyes of the UFC or of my fans. I had six surgeries – four knee surgeries, one foot surgery, and one nose surgery – since I came to the UFC and it was a lot, and it left a mark. So I really believe that I have a lot to show (at UFC 137).”
Yet despite falling on hard times in a sporting sense in recent years, two things haven’t wavered – the level of respect Cro Cop receives from his peers (look at any pre-fight interviews with Nelson or recent foes Brendan Schaub and Pat Barry for proof), and the loyalty of his fanbase. And it’s the fans desire to stick by his side that has really touched the former member of the Croatian Parliament and the anti-terrorist police unit ATJ LUCKO.
“It’s a nice feeling,” he said. “Sometimes I feel weird when completely unknown people approach me and talk to me just like I’m part of the family, but it makes me happy in a way. Sometimes people cross the line in communication, but 99 percent of them are very nice people and I’m very happy to share the moments with them, especially when I can see and feel that it means a lot to them. I was never the kind of person who refused a photo or refused to sign a piece of paper.”
What Cro Cop has been over the years is fairly reclusive when it comes to the media. The tendency is to say that it’s his loss for not getting out in front of the public more often, but as anyone who has spoken to him at length will attest, it’s been our loss, because when you do corner him and catch him when he’s willing to talk on the record, he’s an engaging and fascinating figure. People have seen glimpses of his personality, but despite being more open to one-on-ones in the lead-up to the Nelson fight, he admits to still not being a fan of the whole process.
“During my Japan career, I was able to avoid all kinds of press conferences because I just didn’t like it,” he explains. “I never liked to be exposed too much, and why, I don’t know. I’m aware that many people have a dream just to appear on TV and get some interest. And in a way, it’s my duty. I committed myself to the UFC and I need to promote the fight, so I understand. But if you ask me if I’m especially happy, it’s so hard for me. I think the glory brings only trouble in a man’s life. That’s my opinion. The best thing is to be rich, but anonymous, that nobody knows about it. I think all those stars in America, the movie stars and some pop stars, I think they are very unhappy people. People are spying on them and running after them, those paparazzi are following them, they can’t open their mouth or put their finger in their nose, which is something that each of us does from time to time, because they are being spied on. I never liked it and I never wished for it to happen to me. I am very happy with my life, I have a beautiful family, two sons, and who needs anything more than that?”
He’s right. Yet that also begs the question, at 37 years old, with enough money in the bank and a legacy secure, why go into the gym every day to spar with the likes of Barry (yes, his former opponent has been his main sparring partner for this fight) and make all the other sacrifices a professional fighter has to make?
“It’s hard to say,” Cro Cop admits. “I’m excited because I don’t know how to do anything else but fighting. It doesn’t mean that I’m desperate or that I didn’t make money enough to secure my life and the life of my family; it’s just that I don’t know anything else to do. In a certain way, fighting keeps me alive. And I’m aware that one day when I stop fighting, part of me, a big part of me, will die with that decision. And that’s what still motivates me.”
It’s an intriguing look into the psyche of a fighter, one who has been living this life longer than he hasn’t been. As Cro Cop points out, for over two decades, “I’ve been living like a soldier and living by the book. I don’t consume alcohol, I go to sleep on time, I wake up on time. Every fighter had good and bad days, and of course it happened for me to lose some fights which I’m sorry for very much because I’m that kind of person that I hate to lose. But you never saw me fat, saw me unprepared, never saw me with my hair too long, or that I didn’t shave. That’s something that I would never allow, and I think that I am a big, big professional, and that makes me happy and makes me proud.”
As he conducts this interview, he is getting his legs worked on by his conditioning coach to prepare for another sparring session with Barry. The years of toil and the numerous surgeries have been a reminder that his 40th birthday is closing in, but when he thinks of the alternative to fighting, there’s nowhere else he would rather be.
“I wake up every morning at 6 o’clock,” he said. “Even if I can afford to sleep ‘til 10, even if I can go to my own coffee bar to have coffee and hang around until 2. I can have lunch, take a nap after lunch, and then go back to the coffee bar and play cards with my friends. But that’s not the kind of life that I want. Even if this is much, much more harder. I sparred for the last six weeks and there were a million small injuries. I’ve been punched to the head, kicked to the body, I’ve blocked kicks, so everything hurts.”
He stops suddenly, and gathers his thoughts to make a strong a point as he can.
“You ask me if I need it,” he continues. “No, I don’t need it to survive. But that’s the only life I know and that’s the life that makes me happy. Nothing less, nothing more.”
Those are the words of a fighter, and though Cro Cop may have lost some fights, he has never lost that spirit and desire. It’s why after his last bout, a third round knockout loss to Brendan Schaub at UFC 128 in March, he returned home to Croatia and was back in the gym the very next day. If you think he’s showing up for a paycheck, you would be wrong. If there’s anything left for him to give in the Octagon, he’s going to give it on Saturday night.
“The feeling after the fight, when I kick somebody’s ass, at that moment I am the happiest man on the planet,” he said. “I don’t think about anything else. I don’t think that somebody’s watching me or not watching. I don’t think about the fight money I earned. I just enjoy the moment. And of course on the other side, if it happens that I lost the fight, that’s the worst moment for me that can happen. And that motivates me and keeps me being a soldier and training twice a day.”
Being in the last fight of his UFC contract, this could very well be the final Octagon march for this soldier. And if he does lose, he doesn’t expect to stick around in the UFC, saying “I don’t expect the UFC to call me or extend the contract. I don’t want to live on an old glory that I made five, six, or ten years ago. It’s not an option for me. I need to be honest.”
And he has been – with himself, his opponents, and his fans. And having done so, he feels that all that’s left is a bout of 15 minutes or less with Roy Nelson.
“Any fight can be the last one, and not just for me, but for anyone,” he said. “But a loss is not an option that I can see in this fight. It doesn’t mean that I underestimate Roy, no way, he can be a dangerous fighter, and he can be a true danger to anyone in the world. I’m sure that I’m going to win this fight, but this is MMA. When two fighters enter the cage, one of them has to lose, so I don’t want to underestimate or insult my opponent. I really believe that I’m going to win, just like he believes that he’s going to win. The only thing I can see right now and that I’m thinking about is how to beat Roy Nelson. That’s all I’m thinking right now. For any further conversation, I need to kick Roy Nelson’s ass, that’s all.”
Then, finally, a chuckle from Mirko Cro Cop.
“That’s how it is. I told you everything, just like I’m standing in front of the preacher.”
