He’s back! On April 11, Mirko Cro Cop returns to the UFC to main event UFC Fight Night 64 in Krakow, Poland against rival Gabriel Gonzaga.
Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is known as one of the best heavyweight fighters of all time. He has had huge success in K-1 Kickboxing, where he was the 2012 World Grand Prix Champion, and PRIDE, where he was the 2006 Open-Weight Grand Prix Champion, and he is currently the IGF Heavyweight Champion. Despite being a full-time kickboxer and mixed martial artist, Cro Cop has also served as a member of the Croatian Parliament, an amateur boxer, soldier and a police officer who eventually turned commando when he joined the Croatian Elite Special Forces Tactical Lucko Anti-Terrorist Unit Alpha. In fact, while Cro Cop was a police officer, he was a 3 time national amateur boxing champion.
Mirko Cro Cop Returns to the UFC
Cro Cop is known for his elite kickboxing. He is a dangerous striker and he practically invented the sprawl and brawl strategy. Cro Cop’s near impenetrable takedown defense and signature move – his lightning fast left head kick – has helped make him a dangerous opponent for anyone willing to step into the ring or cage with him. Cro Cop’s famous head kicks were once describes as “right leg: hospital, left leg: cemetery.”
Mirko Cro Cop’s early inspirations were Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme. He began training officially when he was 7 years old in Tae Kwon Do and later he would also learn Karate. In his early years, Cro Cop would train in the garage of his parents home. With no places that sold boxing equipment, Cro Cop’s father made him a heavy bag filled with sand and cotton. His father would also bring home scraps of metal from his job that Cro Cop would lift like weights to build strength. With no one to teach him, Cro Cop would mostly kick the bag and do a lot of stretching. He credits this to his superb kicking technique.
When Cro Cop steps back into the octagon on April 11, he will be facing Gabriel Gonzaga for the second time. Their first meeting at UFC 70 ended with Cro Cop getting knocked out via his famous move, a kick to the head. This knockout became the talk of the town for quite some time, and people started saying “Cro Cop got Cro Cop’d.” This second battle will no doubt be of extreme importance to Cro Cop, who is returning to the UFC after suffering a TKO loss to Roy Nelson at UFC 137. Immediately following the loss he retired inside of the cage, stating, “Even though I didn’t do as well in the UFC as the rest of my career, I feel like I did everything that I could to have an overall successful career. It’s in my best interest that this is my farewell fight, thanks everybody.”
His retirement was short lived though. Since leaving the UFC in 2011, Mirko Cro Cop has returned to kickboxing. He fought in the main event of a card dubbed Cro Cop Final Fight in Croatia, where he defeated Ray Sefo. Following that victory, Cro Cop has fought in and won the K-1 World Grand Prix, and also in Glory Kickboxing. Cro Cop has also been fighting in MMA. He made his return to MMA at Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2012, where he defeated Shinichi Suzukawa with a first round armbar submission. Cro Cop eventually faced Alexey Oliynyk, a late replacement for Fedor Emelianenko, on November 8, 2013 at Legends 2 in Russia. Cro Cop lost the fight by submission in the first round. In August of 2014, Cro Cop defeated former Olympic gold medalist Satoshi Ishii at Inoki Genome Fight 2 in Japan to win the IGF Championship. Upon Cro Cop’s decision to return to the UFC, he was stripped of his IGF Champion title.
Cro Cop giving up his title to return to the UFC again must have been a hard choice, but getting to face the man who humiliated him by using his own signature move on him mush have been a huge motivating factor in that decision. Cro Cop wants revenge. With all of the tournaments he has been in and the titles he has won since leaving the UFC, despite suffering a couple of losses, there is no doubt in my mind that he is coming back to finish Gonzaga the same way he was finished: head kick knockout.
I am super stoked Mirko Cro Cop is returning to the UFC. He is a true warrior in and out of the cage, and I’m sure he is coming back with more than Gonzaga on his mind. I will be tuning in for UFC Fight Night 64 on April 11, 2015 to watch the return of one of MMA’s greatest warriors and a hero of mine, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.
