I was genuinely stunned by Crocop's loss against Gonzaga.
I had him down as one of the best fighters in MMA, but from the fight report he got his ass handed to him.
In an interview today he appears to be frustrated by UFC's glitz and glamour, in Pride he would stay in his hotel room the day of the fight, turn up to the match and go home afterwards, at UFC he has to do weigh in posing lots of pre-match interviews e.t.c and this could have thrown him psychologically, furthermore there was a huge amount of pressure on him for the fight.

Psychological factors seem to be a reason but it really isn't an excuse for a professional fighter of his calibre.

Man, I can't believe he got knocked out by a kick in the head by a brazilian-jiujitsu style fighter!!

In my opinion, he underestimated the standup skill that Gonzaga has been training. The last thing he, or anyone else for that matter would've expected was a kick to the head, and it caught him way off gaurd.
Also, how'd you like the way Gonzaga got the takedown on crocop's one and only kick delivery? Muchos pimpos, si?

I agree completely with the person that said Cro cop underestimated Gonzaga's striking. And i doubt that the interviews and posing played any part in it. I truly beleive he thought he would just walk through Gonzaga, but that is just my opinion. So what are the predictions of Couture vs Gonzaga? I say Couture.

I'd have to agree with you too, Crocop was way to relaxed in the 1st round, where Gonzaga looked like he had severe ADHD, hopping around everywhere.

Did anyone else see how bad Cro cops leg got twisted after he was kicked. It looked pretty nasty, I imagine his ankle is broken or severly sprained.

http://www.crocop.de/
Click on Gonzaga for a vid of the fight, I concur that the knee/ankle injury looks really, really savage.

cause crocop got sexauly aroused during the fight and realized he was falling in love..

I thought Mirko looked outta shape, you could see his ribs practically, he looked alot better all the other times ive seen him fight, but perhaps he just didnt train hard enough.

Speaking of underestimating things... a lot of fans OVERESTIMATE Mirko. He's a dominant MMA fighter, but his style and fight plan have holes in them, he does have several losses in MMA and in kickboxing.

also Gonzaga is five years younger than him, and seemed to be in better condition.

Mirko keeps his left so low as well, he's practically asking for a big strike from that side. He wasn't being active enough standing up. Still he NEVER should have got caught with a kick like that. It was completely his fault, very poor move. If you look at the reply as well, he just wasn't prepared in his defense to deal with high kicks. He flinched when he saw it coming instead of trying to weave way from it, block it, catch it, etc etc. Maybe his mental game was suffering? Perhaps he was distracted.

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