Mirko Cro Cop

[wandshogun09]

Yeah Igor was hard as fuck. By the time I started watching MMA in 2005 he was pretty much done. But as I went back and got watching the Pride stuff he was instantly a favourite. Like I said in the Past Fights thread, he was one of the MVPs on those early Pride shows. If it wasn't for him, Gary Goodridge and Sakuraba those shows would've been rotten. 

I think the first time I saw Igor was in a highlight of Pride knockouts or something. It was the Francisco Bueno KO where Bueno just crumbles like Tower 7 and faceplants. I legit thought he was dead. It looked like when Drago killed Creed. 

Wonder what Igor's up to these days. 

[Egg Shen]

Loved Igor, before Fedor he was the main man in Russian MMA.

Loved the story that used to be told of Igor growing up in a Russian village. Apparently he was notorious for having an insane temper, and when he'd go off a bell would be rung to warn everyone that Igor was on the rampage leading to everyone scattering and locking themselves indoors. I'm fairly certain Igor debunked it later and said it was told as a bit of a joke, but i still like to think it's true.

[wandshogun09]

Haha I love that. 

I can't imagine Igor having a really bad temper though. He always seemed so fucking laid back and placid whenever I saw anything of him outside the ring. 

[jimufctna24]

23 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah Igor was hard as fuck. By the time I started watching MMA in 2005 he was pretty much done.

Same here. 

My first exposure to Igor in real time was reading about his submission loss to Overeem. Likewise, my first exposure to Pedro Rizzo in real time was watching him get mauled by Sergei (highlights of Pride were aired on the old Men and Motors channel). I missed out on both of their primes. 

[wandshogun09]

For a little bit I actually thought Igor and Fedor were one and the same. This was in the days (2005) when I was only getting Pride footage through YouTube highlights and stuff. And YouTube itself was new then, think YT launched that year actually. So watching 'Best of Pride KOs vol.19' on YouTube, with some shit nu-metal dubbed over the top of it and video quality looking like it was filmed with a potato...all I could see was what seemed like the same short stocky bloke in black shorts wrecking people over and over again. And as I'd only heard of Fedor at that point, I thought it was him flattening Francisco Bueno and stuff. 

Now that would've been a fight to see - Fedor vs Igor! 

[Egg Shen]

On Monday, May 01, 2017 at 7:28 PM, jimufctna24 said:

Same here. 

My first exposure to Igor in real time was reading about his submission loss to Overeem. Likewise, my first exposure to Pedro Rizzo in real time was watching him get mauled by Sergei (highlights of Pride were aired on the old Men and Motors channel). I missed out on both of their primes. 

That's a shame. Rizzo was the man too. It was quite sad when he became a glorified punching bag later in his career. 

[wandshogun09]

To this day, all these years later, I think I'd still rate Rizzo vs Couture 1 in my Top 10 heavyweight fights in MMA history. Classic. 

His first fight and KO over Josh Barnett was great as well. 

And the leg kicks...oh the leg kicks. Word out of Bangkok is that Tong Po used to wake up in a cold sweat after nightmares about Rizzo's leg kicks. The man had concrete legs by all accounts.