TOKYO, Aug. 28 — Two years worth of talk and speculation finally came to a head Sunday inside the mammoth Saitama Super Arena when PRIDE heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures) put his belt on the line against Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.
The opening minutes of the fight continued this way, with both fighters stalking each other, periodically throwing heavy bombs. The crowd reacted loudly with each exchange. Everyone in the audience could sense that if just one of these powerful strikes connected, the contest might end in an instant.
After a frenzied exchange of blows, Filipovic ended up on his back with Emelianenko falling into his guard. From this point, a very tense period followed. The referee told the combatants to stop and as the champion arose his face was covered in blood.
Visions of the Emelianenko-Nogueira cut stoppage started to flash before me. Was the Russian's major weakness going to rear its ugly head here tonight? The champion was directed to his corner for a doctor check.
The whole arena waited nervously while the doctors examined the cut. This fight had just barely begun. For it to end via a doctor’s stoppage would have been disastrous at this point. A sigh of relief came over the packed crowd as the champion started to make his way back towards the center of the ring. The cut looked far worse than it actually was.
Action restarted with the champion once again in Filipovic’s guard. Emelianenko began to pound “Cro Cop,” but the Croatian answered with punches from his back, effectively using his legs to prevent the champion from passing. Eventually the Russian slipped past the guard and briefly took North-South position. However “Cro Cop” was able to scramble and return Emelianenko to his guard.
Throughout this first round it was the tanned champion who pushed the action on the mat. Filipovic had his guard closed and often held the dangerous Emelianenko tight with his arms. There were no submission attempts on the challenger’s part and, aside from punching up at his opponent, very little offense. Emelianenko, on the other hand, was constantly rising to his feet in an effort to pass.
The second and third rounds saw much of the same, with both fighters coming in punching hard, staggering each other periodically. In the clinch, Emelianenko often tripped “Cro Cop” to the floor and followed with ground-and-pound, always working for a pass, which he got several times. Not once was the champion on his back.
While “Cro Cop” was surviving on the ground, he really wasn’t doing much else. Towards the end of the second the fight was slowing down, and by the third the challenger looked completely gassed. I had never seen him in that kind of a state before — breathing heavy, moving slowly and at one point he even had trouble keeping his arms up.
The third round finished with Emelianenko throwing punches in Filipovic’s guard. The fight went to the judges and the champion was awarded the unanimous victory.
At his post-fight interview, Emelianenko said that his injured right hand was a concern, but during the fight he didn’t feel any pain. When asked why he wasn’t icing it, he said that he was icing it before the interview and that it felt the same as if after any other fight.
Chute Boxe’s Mauricio Shogun met Brazilian Top Team’s Ricardo Arona (Pictures) in the final of the Middleweight Grand Prix. This fight was extremely high paced and explosive. You really had to watch closely to catch everything.
Shogun came out with a huge jumping spinning kick that Arona dodged, then a scramble ensued with Shogun surprisingly applying an omo plata on the jiu-jitsu master. Arona struggled out of this predicament only to be met by stomps and knees.
Arona looked a bit stunned at this point.
Another exchange followed. Shogun scored a takedown and then took side. After another scramble Shogun got to his feet and threw his patented stomp, which grazed Arona’s face. As soon as his foot hit the floor, Shogun followed up with a hammer fist that connected to Arona’s chin.
This strike put the lights out on Arona. Shogun followed up with a few more just for good measure before the referee could pull him off his unconscious opponent.
This fight was going a mile a minute. It seemed like Arona never really got a chance to get into it, but rather was merely reacting to what Shogun was doing.
At his post-fight interview, Arona said that at the start of the fight when he moved in to take Shogun down, he hit his head on the ground and was stunned pretty badly. His original strategy was to stand with Shogun, then take him down and finish him on the ground. But all of this went out the window, he said, after his unfortunate shot.
Shogun said that he still had a lot of energy and could fight another match. When told about what Arona said, he stated that he didn’t notice whether Arona hit his head on the ground or not, so he really couldn’t comment.