Obviously, the aging process plays a formative role in exposing these flaws, but it's actually a quintessential double whammy: Cro Cop's physical decline also coincided with the general improvement of heavyweight MMA and more consistent fights with top heavyweights. Your baseline heavyweight in an elite promotion in 2009 is a bit less likely to circle face-first into the strike that his opponent is synonymous with. Some are even talented and brazen enough to throw strikes against a former K-1 World Grand Prix runner-up, and aggressively so. Even if they wanted the fight on the floor, as Gonzaga and Overeem did, the ability and willingness to trade strikes in a way that the likes of Herring, Waterman and Coleman couldn't made those takedowns that much easier.
Perhaps a better question is why so much was expected from the man upon his arrival in the UFC. After all, the reaction to his decline is not simply a tough-but-necessary acknowledgement that his better days are behind him, the way many now view Randy Couture's performances. Instead, the response is one of sullen dejection and disappointment, not because he's past his prime but because that fact means he cannot and will not fulfill their lofty expectations for him.
It is hardly a new hypothesis that many of Pride's fighters attained a staggering aura of invincibility due to the crafty and lopsided pro-wrestling-style matchmaking of parent company Dream Stage Entertainment, but it is still an important one. It is fairly telling that one of the most famous moments of his MMA career is decapitating masked Mexican luchador Dos Caras Jr. For that matter, it is perhaps even more telling that his signature K-1 moment is destroying Bob Sapp. Perhaps no fighter in MMA's short history has been better suited to the Youtube generation and the highlight reel, and that's largely due to the brutality he was able to dish out against sacrificial lambs.
The potency of his knockouts coupled with his aesthetic and authentic gimmick -- the Croatian anti-terrorist force member with enough sangfroid to spare -- made him MMA's first larger-than-life fighter. That, along with the fact his exploits came within the ring of Pride, in a heavyweight division that was markedly deeper and more talented than the UFC's (which featured the likes of Mike Kyle and Wesley “Cabbage” Correira), solidified the idea that he could be UFC champion simply upon showing up in the Octagon.
This is not to say the man's resume is without merit. However, the question is how that merit was distorted as people convinced themselves he would rule the UFC with an iron fist. Victories over Heath Herring and Igor Vovchanchyn were strong wins six years ago. Now, though, we know Herring to be a dependable if flawed gatekeeper-to-the-stars, and Vovchanchyn was marginalized as an elite fighter the moment his contemporaries developed half decent boxing and top games. Aleksander Emelianenko has gone on to be a strong heavyweight, but at the time Cro Cop dispatched him, he was an out-of-shape novice with a special surname.
The best wins of Cro Cop’s career are over Wanderlei Silva -- a longtime light heavyweight now bound for 185 pounds -- and his trifecta over Josh Barnett, the only perennially top heavyweight he's defeated in his eight-year career, though I imagine that trio of W's doesn't look too damn good right now given Barnett's recent indiscretions. Beyond these fights, when you think of Cro Cop against elite fighters, you think of him losing. And in some cases, to non-elite fighters as well.
At the time, each of those losses could be justified in some absolving fashion. He lost to Nogueira, the second best heavyweight of all time, due to his inexperience on the ground. Against Kevin Randleman, he simply "got caught." Against Fedor Emelianenko, he simply bumped up against the best heavyweight we've seen yet. Against Mark Hunt, he was burned out and unmotivated after his fourth fight in six months. All of these explanations were reinforced by the fact that somehow, losing in Pride was not at all indicative of the success one might have stateside against the likes of Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia. Interestingly enough, during his Pride tenure, Cro Cop was part of the "Big Three" along with Emelianenko and Nogueira, but historically, he actually fits in much closer with his hypothetical victims Arlovski and Sylvia, two other quite successful but often faltering heavyweights.
His victory in the Pride Openweight Grand Prix three years ago, in which he notched the two best wins of his career in a single night, came specifically at a point where the hackneyed UFC-versus-Pride suddenly wasn't such a landslide any more. Pride was crumbling under the Shukan Gendai scandal surrounding the promotion's underworld ties, and "The Ultimate Fighter" generation brought the UFC prosperity, and as a result, some of the sport's best fighters. Those who parroted the superiority of Pride for years, as well as the neutral parties who wanted a UFC heavyweight division where Justin Eilers didn't fight for a heavyweight title, placed unfortunately high expectations on a fighter who they desperately wanted to believe was a superhero instead of an aging, fallible heavyweight standout.
I fear this piece coming across as an attempt to impeach the career of Mirko Filipovic on all fronts. Let me assure you, that is not my intent. If anything, I see crucial value in pointing out his technical and competitive shortcomings to actually bolster his standing in public memory. While I would find it unnerving for history to depict Cro Cop as an absolute all-time great with an iron-clad resume, I would be equally dismayed for him to be remembered as a bittersweet failure because he couldn't vindicate vehement Pride fans.
He will be the owner of a scintillating highlight for the rest of time, but his actual resume won't position him as the dominant heavyweight it was assumed he would always be, in the ring or the cage. He should be remembered just as much for his impressive victories as for his failures when it counted the most -- to Hoost, Hug and Bernardo, to Fedor, Nogueira and Gonzaga. However, he should not be scorned for failing to live up to the unrealistic expectations of those whose hearts skipped a beat whenever Simon LeBon's voice filled a Japanese arena.