I think Poatan has a better chin than Cro Cop. Whether Randleman lands that punch on Poatan at all, and whether it knocks Poatan out if it did land, is pure speculation. Poatan has only lost an MMA fight due to strikes to Israel, who is a very elite striker. Cro Cop lost due to standup striking or was outstruck standing many times in MMA.
Who has he fought that was as blacksplosive as randleman?
Age is not the only factor in determining when a fighter’s prime starts/ends. It’s not even the biggest one.
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I have…no rebuttal lol.
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To be fair, Poatan was fast-tracked to the title and has had favorable match-ups his entire time in the UFC.
Pretty much all the guys that you listed that gave Crocop trouble were guys that could either take him down or had excellent ground games or both.
The most versatile guy Alex has faced thus far is a 40 year old Jan Blachowicz.
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I’d say Schaub is definitely the anomaly on his string of losses. Someone he really should have beaten.
JDS beat Crocop at the start of his world-beater run.
There’s really no need to talk about MMA regarding this fight, imo, b/c it’ll be a kickboxing match no matter what the rule-set is.
Overeem is the only one I would say outstruck something approximating prime Mirko other than Feyodor
That’s like saying Lennox was in his prime against Kilitchko. He was just coming off a a nearly perfect performance against Tyson. But fighters peak at different times. Cro Cop really wanted to win a GP. Lennox really wanted to topple Tyson.
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It’s not Cro Cop’s fault he kept getting knocked out, those guys kept punching and kicking him in the head.
Now I feel like you’re trolling us lol
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No way, I’ve joined the Borg.
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Randleman didnt outstrike him brochacho. He landed one huge punch that wouldve slept anyone in its path.
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So youre saying Cro Cop isnt a very elite striker then?
Yep and even Fedor had to mix in clinch and takedowns to open up those opportunities in the striking.
Thats why i asked him above if he though Mirko is a “very elite striker.”
Because if he wasnt, he wouldve gotten murdered in K-1 amongst absolute titans such as Hoost, Aerts, Hug, Le Banner…K-1 was stacked with killers.
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Not at all. He’s so elite that it doesn’t even count when he gets knocked out.
Lol dont be ridiculous.
I never said any of that. Youre literally taking what someone else said and applying it to me because im arguing that Mirko IS most definitely very elite.
That isnt even up for debate if you look at who he fought during his run in kickboxing.
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Why are you citing a fight over 3 years past Cro Cop’s peak?
This doesn’t mean anything.
Fighters “age” at different rates on a completely unpredictable level.
Basketball isn’t a contact sport where players are potentially taking dozens of bell-ringers and even getting concussed over the course of a career.
You simply cannot measure combat athletes by the same age standards as ball sport athletes.
And this probably goes double for striking only rules with bigger gloves and a standing 8 count.
And if you just look at something like reflex alone, NFL running backs tend to peak in their late 20s.
Obviously the durability of their legs plays a big part in that.
Well for a fighter it’s the durability of his whole body.
Young reflex usually beats learned reflex.
Fighting style has a lot to do with it.
Look at a fighter like Roy Jones Jr.
Once that reflex began to suffer, he got brought down to Earth with the rest of the humans.
For MMA, a guy like Randy Couture would be the opposite. He wanted to clinch, put his opponent against the fence, and grind.
Timing and reflex are less important in those positions. A grappler isn’t trying to react out in space, he can almost feel his way through things.
Look at Mike Tyson.
His issue wasn’t so much wear and tear, it was discipline and substance abuse.
But even before he went to prison at the young age of 24, he had already started to deteriorate in terms of effectiveness.
He was still explosive as hell.
But he also became predictable. More of a head hunter.
Without Jim Jacobs to keep him in line outside the ring – and Kevin Rooney to keep him right on that edge inside the ring – he very suddenly started to look more human.
Carter Williams looked like a contender with a bright future after winning the K-1 USA tournament – with wins over Fujimoto, McDonald, and Rick Roufus.
Fast forward a year or so and 3 bad KOs in 4/5 fights, and he never looked the same.
There are countless examples…
Cro Cop had over 100 boxing and kickboxing fights in a ring before he even started MMA.
He had a ton of mileage by the end of his Pride run, then went to a completely different environment and his career hit a wall.
These things happen.
You simply cannot just look at a fighter’s age in a vacuum and attempt to compare him to other fighters.
When it comes to fightsports, that’s a very flawed logic.
Cro Cop at his peak was mixing it up with powerful HW strikers and fighters in general, and proved himself elite.
Just in MMA, I don’t know that Alex would be beating guys like Josh Barnett or even Heath Herring (who is generally underrated).
In terms of striking…
Bernardo, Greco, Musashi, Aerts, Sefo, Hunt, Sapp, Bonjaski, etc…
You think Alex is running the table vs those guys?
I don’t.
I said I can see it going both ways, and anyone who is 100% certain of the outcome is kidding themselves.
But the guys going hard against Cro Cop in this thread, really don’t seem to grasp the context of both Cro Cop’s successes and failures.
It’s kind of weird.
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Pre 2007 Cro Cop takes Poatan in K1 9 times out of 10
but is close to 50-50-/60-40 either way in MMA
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10,000%
maybe these guys didn’t watch Cro Cop’s greatness live/in the moment like I (we) did
the Absolute Best Cro Cop wouldve still been a top 5 fighter today in the UFC, without a doubt
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