The Legend vs. The Hybrid

Right kick, hospital; left kick, cemetery. Left hand, fight of the night; right hand, knockout of the night. Each fighter has his own saying for his striking talents, and Mirko Cro Cop and Brendan Schuab will showcase those talents at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey at UFC 128.
“The Hybrid,” Schaub, originally started as an NFL football prospect for the Buffalo Bills. After spending a season on the practice squad, Schaub returned to his home state of Colorado and began to focus on his MMA career.
The history behind Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović is as illustrious as any, and by far one of the most brutal. Cro Cop’s left high kick is legendary, and as dangerous as any strike in MMA. Constantly featured in collections of the best knockouts in all of Mixed Martial Arts, Cro Cop is one to be revered with certain fear.
Former football practice dummy against one of MMA’s most feared strikers, easy pick right? This fight has a lot of interesting wrinkles to it, and is not an obvious pick, nor an upset.
Cro Cop turned 36 last September, and is reaching the end of his outstanding career. The days of highlight reel knockouts and PRIDE Grand Prix Champion are long over, and it has been a long time since any opponent has even respected his high kick much less him throw one. He showed glimpses of his powerful kick against Pat Barry at UFC 115, but none did any significant damage. Maybe that will be Schaub’s undoing; maybe this is the fight where fans will finally see the only thing modern MMA fans want out of him.
The days where Cro Cop had a massive fan base are long past. Most modern MMA fans that know him now know him only because of his highlight reels and never witnessed a true Cro Cop fight live. All of the fights in his recent UFC stint have been far from being called a “true Cro Cop fight.” Mirko Cro Cop’s story is a sad one, because most fans today do not appreciate him for the amazing things he was able to do in PRIDE, the fact that it didn’t translate over to the UFC was a result of age, not lack of talent.
Enough of the sob story, Brendan Schaub certainly wont be feeling sorry for Cro Cop when he steps into the octagon, and he shouldn’t. Cro Cop is in the best shape he has ever been, and said he feels as good as he did in 2006 when he won the PRIDE Championship. Schaub has always been known as a hard worker, and is in quite stout shape himself.
The fight between legend and budding newcomer will be a standup affair. Don’t expect to see Cro Cop throwing any head kicks; expect to see solid boxing out of the grizzled veteran. Schaub will look to counter, and avoid the kick, knowing that it is a weapon Cro Cop always keeps in his back pocket. Schaub may not have admitted it in his many interviews leading up to the fight, but he knows his striking is nowhere comparable to Cro Cop’s, so he will wait for an opening and capitalize.
Cro Cop has become confident in his striking once again, and that will lead to his demise. His striking isn’t on a one-hitter-quitter level as it was before. He doesn’t have the knockout power he thinks he does. Cro Cop will come out fists flying and eat a few counter jabs from The Hybrid before he finds that out. On paper, this should be a really exciting fight, but more than likely it will be two very skilled mixed martial artists waiting for their chance to strike. Schaub wins by decision.