In a sport who’s young history can often lead to exaggeration, Pride Fighting Championship’s Final Conflict Absolute Sunday was a rare instance in which an event can truly be called historical. The remaining four fighters from an open weight tournament of exceptional quality in opponents were meeting one another to become the number one contender to Pride’s Heavyweight title.
Antonio "Minotauro" Rodrigo Nogueira] was the former dominant Pride heavyweight champion and hoping for a fourth shot at the only man to seemingly have his number, Champion Fedor Emelianenko. He had worked his way all the way into the semifinal round and would be facing Josh Barnett, the former UFC Heavyweight champion who lost his title to a steroid test and had been in Japan several years building up his name with a combination of pro wrestling and mixed martial arts fights for the past few years.
Wanderlei Silva and Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic would meet again, four years after they had fought under adjusted rules to favor Filipovic who was making the transition from K-1 kickboxing to mixed martial arts at the time. Silva was the reigning and long-time 205lbs Pride champion and was looking for a challenge in fighting the best heavyweights of Pride. He was fighting for history and for legacy, looking to become a multi-division champion.
Cro Cop was a man of devastating skills who had fallen just short of being a champion time and again and Sunday, on his birthday, he was considering retirement if he could not bring back gold this time around
First Barnett and Nogueira would face off, then Silva and CroCop. The winner of each fight would face the other later in the night. The winner of the tournament would be the man who could beat two of the world’s best in a single night.
Nogueira/Barnett Round 1
Round one begins with stand-up exchanges seeing both Nogueira and Barnett land hard shots with intermittent clinching, mostly initiated by Barnett looking for the takedown. Nogueira thwarts a few of those attempts by Barnett before, on a separation from yet another clinch, Barnett throws a left hook to the Brazilian’s jaw that drops him in flash fashion.
Barnett follows into Nogueira’s half guard who, already appearing to have recovered, is able to recompose to a squared up open guard and throw some punches of his own. Only 3 minutes into the semifinal match, a considerable amount of action has occurred.
Nogueira lands a good up-kick that is immediately answered by Barnett with a right hand to Nog’s head. Barnett tries the first of what would turn out to be numerous attempts at passing Noguiera’s half guard, but fails as Nog grabs a leg of Barnett and is able to get to his feet.
From that return to standing positions, Noguiera, still clutching tightly to his opponent, drives him down to the mat. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert, now in Barnett’s guard, passes it entirely in seconds and finds himself in side mount.
After some Nogueira knees and punches to the body of Barnett, the American is able to regain his half guard and soon uses his superior size to push Nogueira off of him entirely. Once more, both men square up against each other on their feet.
At this point, Barnett seems fatigued as his black mouth guard becomes visible through his open mouth. Noguiera doesn’t wait for Barnett to regain his strength as he closes the distance on the catch wrestler and soon gets to Barnett’s back, still standing. Noguiera then attempts to take Barnett to the ground while maintaining his back position.
But as soon as they hit the ground, Barnett slides out of “Minotauro’s” grasp and positions himself to execute a knee bar. Unable to extend his opponent’s knee for the proper lock, Barnett then shifts his hold to Nogueira’s angle. Nogueira at that point is able to scramble his foot loose and turns Barnett over onto his back and guard.
Nogueira immediately passes Barnett’s guard again and attains the full mount. From there, straddled on Barnett’s torso, Noguiera begins to land punches to the head of Barnett right away. The “Baby Face Assassin” suddenly looks to be in deep water as he takes punches to the head from Nogueira, now in a very high mount and forcing Barnett’s arms up in awkward flailing positions.
Nogueira soon capitalizes and locks Barnett’s right arm with a key lock grip and swings around for a straight arm bar as the 10 minute round goes into it’s final 30 seconds. Despite his precarious positioning, Barnett holds his arm tight and prevents it from being extended. Soon, he breaks the hold and works right away to pass Nogueira’s guard and go for the mount.
Nogueira once again defends this pass attempt of Barnett by grabbing a hold of a leg. Barnett then switches his body weight to go to Noguiera’s right side. Barnett has Noguiera’s legs and hips killed and seems to be in a good working position as the round ends.
The first round saw “Minotauro” achieve dominant positions and improve his position more often than Barnett. Nogueira also had the more set-up and dangerous submission attempts, in addition to securing at least one clean takedown. Barnett, for his efforts, defended submissions well and threatened twice briefly with quick transition submission attempts of his own.
Round 2
The five minute round two begins with Barnett swinging a wide looping right hand that “Mino” is able to duck under easily. After evading the punch, Nogueira grabs a hold of Barnett’s leg and begins to work the single leg takedown. It proves a difficult task as Barnett fends the takedown well. Soon, Nogueira switches his grasp to the other leg and eventually shoots in for the takedown.
Barnett sprawls and avoids the takedown, ending no top of Nogueira and soon in his half guard again. Nogueira initially works for a sweep of Barnett but cannot get it. Barnett does not stay tight to his opponent’s body and allows Nog to again recompose with his two feet on the hips of Barnett defensively.
Barnett stands up to pass Nogueira’s open guard but the Brazilian holds on to an arm of Barnett and uses his own feet to slide into perfect position and execute a sweep and reversal on Barnett. Now in Barnett’s full guard, Nogueira stays active with punches and soon passes into Barnett’s half guard before once again getting the full mount.
With in this excellent position, Nogueira gets busy again with punches but the American is able to shoot his hips up and with an “oompa”, reverse into Nogueira’s guard. The two have found themselves in the ropes of the ring and the referee calls a break to the action momentarily to move them into the center of the ring in their same respective positions.
Nogueira, opens up his closed guard in order to go on the attack from his back. Barnett again stands up and is able to connect on hard punches to Noguiera’s head. But when he returns to the ground, he falls into the half guard of Nog and soon the jiu-jitsu fighter is working to take Barnett’s back again.
Nogueira is only able to get one hook in on Barnett before he is shaken off and returns to his own back working his open guard. Barnett tries a step through pass and ends up in Nogueira’s half guard again. Instead of attempting to pass the half guard again, this time Barnett begins to work on loosening up the locked leg of Nogueira by pulling and punching it.
Barnett swings over to try another knee bar. Nogueira initially defends the lock well by forming a “figure four” with his legs and preventing the leg that Barnett is attempting to lock out from being extending. It appears that, as the clock winds down Barnett will not be able to finish Nogueira with his knee bar attempt, but soon and suddenly he is able to extend it fully. Nogueira has no real defense for the hold at this point and it’s all he can do to grimace and tough through the pain as the bell rings and may just have saved him from tapping out.
Despite all of the words of challenge, especially from Barnett, preceding their fight, Barnett and Nogueira share apparently calm words as they sit on the ground together in the seconds after the fight has ended. It’s clear the battle has earned respect for both fighters in the eyes of the other.
The second round was similar to the first in that Nogueira attained the more dominant positions more often, but Barnett’s last second submission attempt that appeared to be full on changed the entire complexion of the fight.
The majority of the ringside judges seemed to feel this way, at least, as Barnett is awarded a split-decision victory and advanced to the finals of the tournament later that night.
Silva/Cro Cop Round 1
Wanderlei Silva comes out with wide punching fury at Mirko CroCop, but the Croatian Parliament member/world class fighter defends and is unscathed. When Mirko moves in seconds later with a straight one-two punch combination Wanderlei appears at least momentarily stunned.
Wanderlei swings a couple more missing punches at CroCop and the two circle each other for a few seconds before CroCop lands a hard left kick to Silva’s right midsection. Not to be intimidated and perhaps out to prove that the shot didn’t hurt him, Silva swings right back only to be rebuffed by another straight left hand from the former k-1 kick boxer.
Silva is cut over his right eye from Mirko’s handiwork and the tone of the fight has already been decidedly set by CroCop. Seeing Silva hurt, the Croatian pursues him, forcing the Brazilian into the ropes and then into shooting for a takedown.
Cro Cop easily sprawls and defends Silva’s takedown attempt, putting him on his back with a wide open guard. Not losing any time, Mirko begins to storm down punches, straight and hammer fist alike, onto the bleeding skull of the middleweight champion.
Overwhelmed, Silva is unable to fully slow down the action for a few seconds until he wraps up Mirko into his guard and ties up his arms and fists. Silva soon attempts an arm bar from his guard but CroCop allows not a second for the submission to sink in as he pulls away the left arm that Silva is trying to lock.
Cro Cop stands and backs away, opting to return to fighting from his feet, and Silva obliges him. Silva sees more aggression as the answer and tries to rush into Cro Cop to land punches but only walks right into another lead left straight from the heavyweight.
From there, CroCop dives into Silva’s guard and lands more punches to the head. CroCop is relentless and repeatedly rebuffs Silva’s attempts to again tie him up, and connects with shot after shot to the head and face of Silva. With a very brief pause in the action, the referee calls a halt to the fight in order to have Silva’s swelling eye checked by the ringside doctors.
The swelling does not seem to warrant a doctor’s check but nonetheless, Wanderlei is fussed over by doctors for a much longer time than should be needed to determine if the fight can continue. Cro Cop stands across the ring in the opposite corner, waiting. After a minute and a half Silva seems to be imploring the doctors to allow him to continue.
Silva’s head coach has joined him in the corner giving him instructions and encouragement. Silva is now bouncing up and down excitedly, seemingly eager to get back to the fight, as his right eye is rubbed some more. Now, after two minutes, a ringside attendant has Silva follow his moving finger with his eyes in order to test his capabilities.
Cro Cop is now sitting on a stool given to him by his corner to pass the time on. After nearly three minutes of standing, talking and bouncing back and forth, the officials decide that Silva is not in fact unconscious, and it appears they will allow the fight to continue.
Silva turns to face Cro Cop but first a few pairs of hands takes more time to wipe his sweat down, and perhaps also to rub the tension out of his back. Finally, after about 3 and a half minutes, the fight is restarted in the former positions of Cro Cop inside of Silva’s closed guard, in the center of the ring.
Silva starts into Cro Cop with rapid punches to the side of the head. Many of them connect, but Mirko withstands them and stays tight, not exposing any limbs to be attacked. Three minutes into the first round, Silva appears without answer to Cro Cop’s offensive.
Soon, the referee stands both fighters up and serves Silva with a yellow card for supposed inactivity. Once restarted, Silva stalks Cro Cop with aggressive punches, but to little effect as CroCop circles away and measures his opponent up. Silva surges once more, connecting on hard punches to CroCrop’s head and backing him into a corner. Mirko is able to circle out of the corner and unleash some straight lefts of his own. He then lands another kick to Silva’s body. A few seconds later the final kick of the night was thrown.
All of the body kicks of the preceding minutes from Cro Cop were apparently meant to set up his show-stopping high left kick. And he only needed one. Mirko’s kick came up wide and cut a dangerous angle before connecting his shin to the top right side of Silva’s head.
Silva dropped immediately and the fight was stopped, the first KO or TKO loss in nearly 8 years for the long reigning Pride middleweight champion.
The finals of the grand prix would be Josh Barnett versus Mirko CroCop. Mirko had already twice beaten Barnett going into their tournament bout Saturday but Barnett seemed not at all deterred.
Cro Cop/Barnett Round 1
As the two fighters square up for their stare-down/official instructions, tension was replaced by levity. Barnett began talking to CroCop, who in turn began to smile uncharacteristically (in the ring, at least). Barnett began pointing to his own eye, apparently indicating that Cro Cop had something in his eye. CroCop then scratched around his left eye, looking for what Barnett was speaking of. He found it, brushed it aside and thanked Barnett for the assistance, both shaking hands and smiling broadly.
Where he was helpful moments earlier, the opening bell saw Barnett come out furiously with strikes in an attempt to overwhelm Cro Cop. The kick boxer calmly countered with a kick to Barnett’s midsection.
Barnett then looked towards his strengths as a fighter as he tried to takedown Cro Cop, but the striker defends the attempt easily. Upon separation, Barnett looks for openings just as he did against Nogueira and lands a couple of good leg kicks.
It doesn’t take long, however for CroCop to counter again, this time with a left high kick that drops Barnett to the floor. Barnett retains his composure and retains his senses enough to get up and grab the offending leg of CroCop in order to bring him down to the ground. Mirko defends with a guillotine choke, forcing Barnett to let the leg go. Barnett is entirely on the defensive now as he is hurt. He desperately tries to cover up and stay close, away from Cro Cop’s dangerous strikes.
Mirko uses excellent footwork to circle to his left and unloads a strong left hand onto Barnett. Perhaps his reflexes awoken by the danger, Barnett comes back with knees from a Thai clinch, only to be thrown down by CroCop.
Mirko follows Barnett to the ground but soon the fight is paused to have a cut and bruise over the right eye of CroCop that he sustained in his prior bout, checked. Once the fight is restarted, Barnett works hard to open up CroCop for arm bars and triangle chokes, but his hips are just not in it and he does not hit the necessary angles. He does manage to land a nice up-kick to the face of CroCop and gets back to his feet. But Mirko responds by firing a left straight cross and uppercut in succession, forcing Barnett to cover up and retreat.
Cro Cop lands another left straight that hurts Barnett. Barnett backs up and shakes his head rapidly, trying to undo the effects of the jarring blows. He cannot. The pair clinch up again and Cro Cop lands more uppercuts to Barnett and he drops to the floor again.
The end is near for Barnett has Cro Cop connects on hammer fists from the side of a turtled up Barnett. Barnett is able to roll into guard but CroCop just continues to land hard connecting punches from inside of it. Still aggressive, Barnett opens up his guard to increase his offensive weapons with 3 minutes left in the round. He takes more punches from CroCop and appears to be in a lot of pain.
Barnett soon taps out, clutching the right side of his face. In an odd juxtaposition to the fallen Barnett, streamers and confetti immediately fall from the rafters in celebration.
Mirko Cro Cop sits near the ropes, in exhaustion, with his team piling on top of him. After years of competing in K-1 and in Pride, Mirko Cro Cop has finally won something big. In one of the most talent-laden tournaments in history, the Croatian has finished first and cemented his status as the number one contender to the Pride Heavyweight title.
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