ProphetFighting

Dana White says Cro Cop might retire; Cro Cop says “whaaa?”

First of all, kudos to our Croatian speaking associate Edo for this US media scoop. Visit his new sports betting blog–where I’m a contributing writer–to show your appreciation:

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This isn’t the scoop–we’ll get to that in a moment. Mirko is now fully recovered from his nose surgery and is back to training with a new coach Marijan Zizanovic:

Mirko is focused on only one thing lately – to get back on track. His training regiment has been changed and now with Marijan Zizanovic, his former trainer, Mirko looks for a strong comeback. The details about his next fights are still not available, but it seems that Cro Cop will come back stronger once again.

Hard Trainings in the Cro Cop gym @ The Official Mirko website

Now the more recent news…Dana White was asked about Cro Cop in his post UFC 81 press conference and tried to give the impression that Mirko was asleep at the proverbial switch. The “King of the F-Bomb” said that Cro Cop had not been in touch since his last UFC appearance and that he was up against a “deadline” of February 4th to figure out his future plans. It’s a good thing that Dana White didn’t employ his usual tactics of East/West diplomacy or he would have just called Mirko an “(F-Bomb) crazy Crow-att.”

This all led to speculation within Cro Cop’s native country that he was on the verge of hanging up his boots…actually, he fights barefoot so that metaphor won’t work….This led to speculation that Cro Cop was thinking of hanging up his overly tight trunks–in other words, thinking of retiring.

And here’s the scoop which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those of you who are aware of Dana’s penchant for talking/swearing first and thinking later when someone sticks a microphone in his face:

Again, thanks to the only actual Ph.D. on the “Team Prophet” staff, aka the man they call the “Thunder from Down Under”, Edo. Show your love by visiting his website BetWWX.com.

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So the Croatian media heads over to Casa de Cro Cop and asks the man for the 4-1-1 about Dana’s deadline and his retirement plans–to which an incredulous Mirko responds “Whaaaa?” and “Hawwww?”. Actually, he didn’t start channeling his inner southern sharecropper at that point…but he *did* indicate that he had no idea what the “King of the F-Bomb” was talking about, that he’d been in touch with the UFC “braintrust” in Las Vegas and that all was going well with his newly functioning nose and that he was training his ass off and ready to fight anyone the good folks at Zuffa wanted to throw in front of him.

On balance, I guess I have to call myself a Dana White fan. He works his ass off promoting his organization and his sport. He’s a colorful character in a sport that too often seems as bland as playing Trivial Pursuit with the high school wrestling team. He’s enthusiastic, and its nice to see a corporate bigwig not afraid of throwing a few “F-Bombs” around when the situation calls for it. Sure, Dana may consider such mundane events as ordering espresso and buying a double-double at the In-n-Out Burger drive through as situations that “call for” a tirade of “F-Bombs” but that’s another discussion for another day.

My primary gripe with Dana White is that he’ll never be a candidate for Secretary of State. Part of this is that he’s an excitable guy, his mouth and brain become disconnected when put in front of a microphone and TV camera, and that he’s willing to perform semantical backflips to give any story a “pro Zuffa” spin. His tone deaf diplomacy has already cost the UFC three of the top heavyweights in the world–Randy Couture (quit), Josh Barnett (Dana holds a grudge against him) and Fedor Emelianenko (pissed off when Dana called his management team “a bunch of crazy Russians”). Could Mirko “Cro Cop” be the next addition to the list of world class fighters that Dana has run off?

Cro Cop may have looked awful in his last two UFC contests but I’m willing to take him at his word that his breathing problems (combined with his early refusal to train in a cage despite not having experience in that environment) was at fault. He did, after all, go through Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett on the same night in winning the PRIDE Open Weight Grand Prix in September of 2006. In other words, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Dana White needs to dispel himself of the mistaken impression that he’s Vince McMahon and the UFC is the WWE. If Vince McMahon wants to run off a wrestler he’s got a lot more clout–if he wants to stay in the US he can wrestler for “WWE Lite” aka TNA. He can wrestler in front of 100 people in a trailer park in Barnwell, SC. If he wants to make any *real* money, however, his only recourse is to head to a country with a big wrestling market such as Japan or Mexico.

MMA fighters in today’s boom climate have a *lot* more options. The Strikeforce/EliteXC conglomeration of promotions have TV clearance on Showtime. There’s the IFL and a number of other smaller promotions. And don’t forget there’s that Mark Cuban guy in Dallas who wants MMA programming on his network and has an ATM balance with more zeros behind it than even the Fertita brothers. Throw in the M1 Russian promotion that Fedor works for, K-1 in Japan, the “Victory Road” promotion that just announced a very intriguing matchup of Hidehiko Yoshida v. Josh Barnett for 3/5/08, BoDog Fight, and any number of international promotions and a MMA fighter has the sort of leverage that his pro wrestling counterpart doesn’t.

The UFC was fortunate in that a fighter whom MMA hardcores perceive as a legit champion left Las Vegas with the “Interim” heavyweight title. At some point, however, the fanbase will be asking why so few of the top heavyweights are pulling a Zuffa LLC paycheck.

Don’t forget to visit BetWWX

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Note to other MMA websites: if you quote this or report on it throw us a bone and give credit to ProphetFighting. We’d do it for you…

[tags]MMA, mixed martial arts, Dana White, UFC, Mirko Cro Cop[/tags]

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