Cro Cop toppled by Brazilian Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 70: Worlds Collide

MANCHESTER, England (CP) - It ended with a kick to the head, as some had expected. But it was the wrong head.

Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, the Croatian heavyweight who famously described his own kicking prowess by saying "Right leg, hospital, left leg cemetery," was knocked out Saturday night by a right kick to the head from Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 70: Nations Collide.

The 27-year-old Brazilian scored the mixed martial arts shocker at 4:51 of the first round after softening up and bloodying the heavily-favoured Filipovic with some vicious ground and pound before a sellout crowd of 14,921 at the MEN Arena.

It was the third straight upset for the UFC, following Matt Serra's dethroning of welterweight champion Georges St Pierre of Montreal at UFC 69 and Randy Couture's victory over heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia at UFC 68.

"Everybody loses in this sport . . . on any given night, anybody can get beat," UFC president Dana White said.

The win earns Gonzaga (8-1) an August heavyweight title shot against Couture, probably in Las Vegas. The champion, who was in the arena to see the upset, had picked Gonzaga to win, although not the way it ended.

"I didn't expect the head kick," Couture said. "I don't think anybody expected the head kick out of him."

Filipovic (22-5) went down like a sack of bricks and took his time getting up. He eventually wobbled out of the arena having hardly thrown a punch on the night.

"Everybody has a plan - until they get hit," Filipovic said in a pre-fight promo.

He proved his own point.

"Top of the world," the burly Gonzaga managed in English after the fight.

Gonzaga has now won four straight in the UFC, although Filipovic represented a serious step up in class from his three previous victims: Carmelo Marrero, Fabiano Scherner and Kevin Jordan.

"Like I said in my first interview, I'm the underdog because nobody knows who I am, but I bet after I win this fight the world's going to know who I am," Gonzaga said through an interpreter. "I've always known who I am."

Denied a marquee title showdown between Couture and Filipovic, White must now sell a Couture-Gonzaga fight.

"Obviously, Randy Couture and Mirko Cro Cop was a monster fight," White said. "And Gonzaga finished that one."

Couture, 43, said Filipovic would have suited him better.

"I traditionally do better against guys who are strikers, guys like Chuck Liddell and Tim Sylvia whose weaknesses tend to be more on the ground. That's an area where I'm strongest, so I can usually comfortably put a guy there.

"Mirko's also one of this guys. I was confident if I came after him I could put him on the ground. You take a guy like Gonzaga down and you're still not out of the woods. He's an expert in submission. He's a very very skilled grappler so you've got to be sharp all around."

Filipovic, 32, had been a 5-1 favourite in some quarters but Gonzaga, who trains in Ludlow, Mass., came into the fight quietly confident.

"I saw that he wasn't intimidated," Couture said. "And most of the guys that face Mirko are intimidated and that intimidation forces them to be tentative, which allows Mirko to establish his range and set up his tempo and find that shot that he's looking for.

"The guys that come out and are aggressive and chase him down and get in his face put him on the defensive right away, tend to do well against him."

That's what happened. The 243-pound Brazilian came after the 225-pound Cro Cop, who did not throw a punch for 30 seconds - and that was a jab.

"It was definitely part of my strategy to move forward and attack," Gonzaga said later. "It's very hard to win a fight when you are walking backwards."

Filipovic found himself on his back 90 seconds into the round when he launched a kick and the Brazilian caught it, hurling the off-balance Croatian to the ground. Gonzaga then hammered the 32-year-old Filipovic with elbows from above for some three minutes, cutting him near the hairline.

The fight showed that while Filipovic can be a stone-cold assassin on his feet, he is vulnerable on his back. The Croatian absorbed a lot of punishment until referee Herb Dean surprisingly stood the fighters up.

"Mirko, I think, still has some work to do to be a more well-rounded fighter," said Couture.

When Gonzaga launched the final kick, Filipovic seemed to think it was going to land on his side. As he attempted to brace himself, the Brazilian's foot sailed higher and clipped him on the head with devastating results.

"I don't think anybody's bulletproof," said Couture, who has lost eight of his 23 fights. "You look at every single guy, they've got a loss somewhere along the line.

"The only guy that maybe has a reputation of being bulletproof right now is probably Pride heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. He's had one loss but it was mostly due to a cut. Nobody's really beat him. There's too many ways to lose in this sport and too many mistakes you can make. Too many things that guys can capitalize on."

"You judge them by how they come back," added White, saying Filipovic was "fine."

Couture, however, wondered whether the Croatian had hurt his knee or ankle by the awkward way he fell.

Filipovic spoke briefly in the ring after regaining his equilibrium, expressing his disappointment. He did not attend the post-fight news conference.

Filipovic, a former member of an elite anti-terrorist police unit, returns to Croatia where he is a member of parliament. Used to collecting spectacular knockouts, he now finds himself starring in Gonzaga's highlight reel.

Saturday's card was the first in England for the UFC since UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall in 2002 at London's Royal Albert Hall. The 10-bout Manchester card featured fighters from 10 different countries.

Despite the head-turning upset in the main event, a candid White was not enthralled with some of the performances on the evening.

"I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed with our showing," he said. "Usually from top to bottom, all of our fights are exciting.

"Some guys didn't pull the trigger tonight, a lot of stalling, a lot of staring - very unusual for a UFC event."

The undercard offered more action than the five-card main event, although Canadian Victor Valimaki did not fare well in the early going.

Italian light-heavyweight Alessio Sakara stopped the 25-year-old from Edmonton via TKO at 1:44 of the first round. The former pro boxer ended it when he caught Valimaki with a big right and swinging left, prompting the referee to step in as a crouched Valimaki was left covering up at the fence.

Local favourite Michael Bisping, winner of Season 3 of The Ultimate Fighter reality TV show, ran his record to 14-0 by stopping 36-year-old Elvis Sinosic (8-10-2) in the second round.

The fight - lopsided except for a brief Sinosic rally - won bout-of-the-night honours, proving White's point that it was not a stellar card.

Former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski (13-5) posted an unimpressive decision over Fabricio Werdum (9-3-1), a former Pride fighter from Brazil.

French heavyweight Cheick Kongo (20-3-1) used a strong finish to win a majority decision over Assuerio Silva (32-5) despite being slammed four times by the beast-like Brazilian. Brazil's Ryoto Machida took a unanimous dull decision over American David Heath in a battle of 9-0 light-heavyweights.

Notes: The UFC announced Saturday that welterweight champion Serra and Matt Hughes will be coaches of Season 6 of The Ultimate Fighter and will meet for the 170-pound title. With the series slated to debut in the fall, that means the Serra-Hughes title fight won't be for a while. In turn, that delays a Serra rematch with St Pierre. White said the Canadian could meet someone like Josh Koscheck in the interim . . . White also repeated that the UFC is coming to Canada, but did not offer a date.

Source: www.brandonsun.com