Fans of PRIDE champ Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovi? are familiar with his quote “Right leg, hospital; left leg, cemetery” from his run at the PRIDE 2006 Open-Weight Grand Prix, in which he won by stopping Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett on the same night.
Filipovi? and season ten “TUF” winner Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson (15-6) are both set to meet at the end of this month (October 29) on the main card of UFC 129 in Las Vegas.
Nelson is preparing to meet the fighter who won the PRIDE tournament, and not the man fighting on the last bout of his contract, as well as a two fight losing skid. Joking with MMAFighting.com, ‘Big Country’ referenced the ‘Cro Cop’ quote to grab a laugh talking about training in a cemetery for this fight.
“I’ve just been working out in the cemetery a lot. I’ve got to get ready for the left kick. I want to see what it’s like…”
“It’s so cliche, you know. You have to beat a legend to be a legend. But I think just to fight Cro Cop, period, is something that, as a fighter, you just want to do,” Nelson said. “You want to be able to say, hey, I competed with some of the best of the world.”
Nelson himself is also on a two-fight losing streak, having lost to Frank Mir at UFC 130 and to Junior dos Santos at UFC 117 in a No. 1 contender match.