Sherdog Remembers: The Start of Mirko’s Masterwork
Sherdog.com Staff May 5, 2011
It remains the crowning achievement in the storied career of
Mirko
“Cro Cop” Filipovic, and his road to the 2006 Pride Fighting
Championships open weight grand prix title began with a first-round
technical knockout against Ikuhisa
Minowa at Pride “Total Elimination Absolute” on May 5, 2006 at
the Osaka Dome in Osaka, Japan.
Fifteen men -- Filipovic, current Strikeforce heavyweight king Alistair Overeem, former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett, one-time Pride heavyweight titleholder Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and 1992 Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida among them -- entered the star-studded tournament on that fateful Friday five years ago. Brazilian icon Wanderlei Silva was awarded a first-round bye.
All seven first-round tournament matches ended in finishes. Barnett
submitted Aleksander
Emelianenko with a second-round keylock; Kazuyuki
Fujita knocked out James
Thompson; Mark Hunt
stopped MMA pioneer Tsuyoshi
Kosaka on second-round punches; Nogueira submitted the
400-pound Wagner
“Zuluzinho” da Conceicao Martins with a first-round armbar;
Fabricio
Werdum submitted Overeem with a second-round kimura; and
Yoshida submitted Yosuke
Nishijima with a first-round triangle choke.
Yoshida was next on the Croatian kickboxer’s hit list in July. Savage leg kicks from Filipovic cut down the judoka and propelled him into the semifinals two months later. There, he defeated Barnett and Silva on the same day to win the tournament, as he knocked out “The Axe Murderer” with a first-round head kick before striking “The Babyfaced Assassin” into submission in the final.
Unbeknownst at the time, Cro Cop had reached the pinnacle of his career. The following February, he debuted in the UFC with a pedestrian TKO against Eddie Sanchez. His ill-fated encounter with Gabriel Gonzaga came next at UFC 70 in Manchester, England. Felled by a brutal first-round head kick, Filipovic was never the same. He has gone 5-4-1 since.
Still, no one can take away from him the magical three-month tear he enjoyed in the 2006 Pride open weight grand prix, which began on this day five years ago.
Fifteen men -- Filipovic, current Strikeforce heavyweight king Alistair Overeem, former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett, one-time Pride heavyweight titleholder Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and 1992 Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida among them -- entered the star-studded tournament on that fateful Friday five years ago. Brazilian icon Wanderlei Silva was awarded a first-round bye.
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Yoshida was next on the Croatian kickboxer’s hit list in July. Savage leg kicks from Filipovic cut down the judoka and propelled him into the semifinals two months later. There, he defeated Barnett and Silva on the same day to win the tournament, as he knocked out “The Axe Murderer” with a first-round head kick before striking “The Babyfaced Assassin” into submission in the final.
Unbeknownst at the time, Cro Cop had reached the pinnacle of his career. The following February, he debuted in the UFC with a pedestrian TKO against Eddie Sanchez. His ill-fated encounter with Gabriel Gonzaga came next at UFC 70 in Manchester, England. Felled by a brutal first-round head kick, Filipovic was never the same. He has gone 5-4-1 since.
Still, no one can take away from him the magical three-month tear he enjoyed in the 2006 Pride open weight grand prix, which began on this day five years ago.
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