Fedor Versus Cro Cop: The Biggest Fight in MMA, Ten Years On

In August of 2005, the greatest mixed martial arts bout of all time was finally upon us. After mix-ups, surprise losses, and a laundry list of injuries, Fedor Emelianenko would finally defend his world heavyweight title against the most prolific knockout artist in MMA, Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic.

Fedor Emelianenko had taken the PRIDE heavyweight title like a bolt from the blue. Appearing in a lackluster PRIDE debut against Semmy Schilt in 2002, Emelianenko had gone on to brutalize number one contender, Heath Herring in a bout which was considered by most to be a tune up for Herring. Through his thudding ground strikes, and dynamic switches from striking to grappling, Emelianenko made Herring look thoroughly mediocre and by the end of the affair, Herring's face came to resemble road kill. Stephen Quadros put it best in his assertion that Emelianenko put Herring 'through the meat grinder'.

Following the bout, Emelianenko continued his ascendancy. Sitting in the guard of the vaunted submission master, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Emelianenko grip stripped and power punched his way to the heavyweight title, all the while seemingly meeting the champion head-to-head in his area of greatest strength. Once he had taken the belt, what followed was a streak of seven finishes in the space of a calendar year. Unfathomable in an age where we are lucky to get one heavyweight title fight every two years.

Emelianenko was a balletic juggernaut, in equal parts power and grace. Too technical for the biggest men, too fast for the strongest, and too ferocious for the thoughtful. But not untouchable. No, he had seen trouble. Against the great wrestler, Mark Coleman, Emelianenko had been rag-dolled. Emelianenko's remarkable judo and sambo prowess did nothing to stop Coleman from taking him down and getting on his back. Emelianenko had to battle back from the brink of defeat to submit Coleman with a clutch armbar.

Two months later, Emelianenko was forced to rally from a jaw-dropping suplex by Kevin Randleman to submit the American wrestler.

And that is what Emelianenko did best. He was easily the most rounded fighter in the game at heavyweight, and he could always find some way to win. When Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira realized that his biceps ride guard had allowed him to sweep The Russian Experiment every time he went to it in their first fight, he came back in their second ready to use it almost exclusively. Within a minute Nogueira had threatened a knee bar, a sweep, and found an arm drag which could have spelled disaster for the champion. A clash of heads as Emelianenko panicked caused a gash on Emelianenko which led to the fight being called off.

In the rematch, Emelianenko was nowhere to be found. He danced around Nogueira, battering him with punches and kicks, before slinging the Brazilian to the floor and retreating to a safe distance only to invite him up to the feet in order to do it all over again.

The only problem was that Emelianenko would only give under the most extreme of circumstances. His vaunted fight IQ rarely kicked in without him tasting his own blood and deciding it was necessary to fight smarter. He could be wild and wide, and it had gotten him into severe trouble most memorably against Kazayuki Fujita. Rattling the Japanese wrestler along the ropes with punches, Emelianenko began to swing in his wide, thumb-down hooks. Fujita covered and threw a blind overhand back, shocking himself and everyone else in the arena as he cracked the Russian clean on the jaw and put him on shaky legs.

Emelianenko tied up, recovered, and rallied with a rib splitting body kick along the ropes, choking Fujita out moments later. But there was the flaw. Everyone had seen it.

Enter Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic. The kickboxer's first ten fights in mixed martial arts are unimaginable for a kickboxer crossing over to the sport in this day and age. Besting the aforementioned Fujita in his 2001 debut, Filipovic fought Wanderlei Silva, Kazushi Sakuraba, Fujita again, Heath Herring, Igor Vovchanchyn, and in his tenth fight found himself against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for an interim heavyweight belt (the other thing about Emelianenko was that he was always hurting himself).

After making Nogueira look like he had no business being in the same ring for ten minutes—hitting him with left straights, body kicks and even his infamous high kick—Cro Cop was finally taken down and submitted with a rolling armbar as he attempted to bridge out of mount. Though he had looked brilliant even in his loss, Filipovic's path hit the skids as Kevin Randleman caught him with a left hook out of nowhere just months later.

Following the shocking loss to Randleman, Filipovic put together the most impressive streak of his career. Of the six men he fought between July of 2004 and June of 2005, none made it out of the first round with Filipovic. Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, Josh Barnett, and even Emelianenko's younger brother, Alexander, all fell to the reinvigorated Cro Cop and could barely put up a fight.

In Filipovic's final fight before his meeting with Fedor, he met Ibragim Magomedov—a decent Russian fighter, who had Fedor Emelianenko in his corner. Magomedov was instructed to push forwards and see how Filipovic fared on the back foot, where his kicks would not be such an issue. As Magomedov crumpled to the floor, clutching the shin print in his midsection in front of his own corner, it was clear that he had emphatically failed.

The pin-point precision of Filipovic's left straight, his beautiful side steps, his crushing sprawl and his tremendous strength. This was the man to test Emelianenko. A moment's wildness and Fedor Emelianenko would be just another name on the list of victims. The fight was signed for August 2005, and the fighters went into camp for the biggest fight in MMA history.

As the opening bell sounded, the two touched gloves and Fedor immediately began to walk Filipovic down. Filipovic's tactic for alleviating pressure had always been to side step out to his left and look for an opportunity to throw in the left straight. Emelinanenko continued to pressure forward and step across to his right. He showed his hand in the first engagement of the bout as he threw his right hand lead and immediately moved to the clinch, attempting an inside trip along the ropes.

The tight rope that Emelianenko was forced to walk against Filipovic was between checking the left kicks, and deflecting the left straight. The great southpaw double attack. Opponents would come out with their right hand high and wide, ready to stop the left kicks of Cro Cop, then a few left straights would get through and suddenly their right hand would be creeping in to parry and Cro Cop would be able to kick around or through it.

Fedor had been training in Holland in preparation, under the instruction of Ernesto Hoost and with stablemates like Remy Bonjansky. Where many would be working desperately on their wrestling to rush the takedown, Emelianenko was focused on thriving in Cro Cop's area of greatest strength. Sparring with lightning fast light heavyweights like a young Tyrone Spong, Emelianenko was used to quick kicks.

Rather than take any chances by just using his forearms to block the kicks (which usually got men kicked in the liver as they desperately tried to deal with Filipovic's high kicks) Emelianenko created a long barrier down his side. Watch any seminar with the Emelianenko brothers or read Emelianenko's book and you will see the same thing repeated—they both advocate checking the entire side of the body rather than developing checks and blocks for low, middle, and high kicks as separate entities.

But that didn't do anything to diminish the threat of the left straight. Emelianenko's answer to that was to either slip to the elbow side, which Mark Hunt showed the dangers of:

Or to use the rear hand parry as so many others, including Igor Vovchanchyn, had failed to do. Though Fedor managed to use both in combination relatively successfully.

But the danger of the double attack was still very apparent. Here Cro Cop throws the left straight, notices Fedor slipping to the left side, and immediately throws the left high kick, hoping to catch him leaning.

Emelianenko spent the majority of the first three minutes escaping headache-makers by the skin of his teeth. But the problem with attempting to stay in the face of a hard hitter is that you are going to get hit.

Suddenly, with five minutes remaining in the opening ten minute round, Emlianenko slipped a straight, and ate a second as Cro Cop doubled up. His legs wobbled, he backed up and Cro Cop gave chase. A wild overhand sent Cro Cop stumbling, and he returned to throw the left high kick. As the two stumbled around, Fedor bundled Cro Cop to the ground and began to use the time to recover his wits.

Filipovic's guard wasn't as threatening as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's, or Tsuyoshi Kosaka's, but where Emelianenko had battered them on the ground, Filipovic was able to tie Emelianenko up for much of the time spent there. Working with Fabricio Werdum had clearly helped the Croatian sensation no end.

As the first round ended, Emelianenko's right eye was bruised and watery from the left straights he had been eating, but it was Cro Cop who was tiring. Throughout the first round he had been forced to run, forced to survive on the mat, and amid Emelianenko's seemingly wild flurries the Russian had been landing hard shots on Filipovic's ribs, chest and midriff.

Always one to push his advantage, Fedor was in the face of Cro Cop from the first moment of round two, attacking the body and never giving the kickboxer a break. The clinch and the takedowns were always there, always the threat, but it was the threat of it which was doing the damage.

It is a hard thing to take a fighter's will. Mirko Cro Cop, who had never won the K-1 title he had spent his life working towards, and who had fallen just short in his first go at PRIDE gold, was not going to give up. What Emelianenko did was take Cro Cop's body to a point where it wouldn't allow him to do the things he so desperately desired.

As the fight closed, everyone knew who had one. It was one-sided domination from the second round onwards and it had been masterful. While the fight was the most anticipated in mixed martial arts, and showed the incredible fight IQ of the PRIDE heavyweight champion, this story doesn't have a happy ending. Of course it doesn't, this is professional fighting. Both men hung around too long, Emelianenko's penchant for swinging wild caught up with him, and Cro Cop's chin and speed declined to the point where he is just a shell of his former self.

But that is the nature of fighting and of fighters, they just can't help themselves. What we do have are the memories, and the footage of the fight to recall the days when the heavyweight division was something to watch.