It was a memorable night in Zagreb, Croatia Friday night as 15,000 Croatians packed Arena Zagreb to witness history. In attendance were fellow Croatian sportsmen Mario Mandzukic and Goran Ivanisevic to watch fighting legend Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic win the K1 World Grand Prix Championship. The aging Filipovic (38 years old) secured the title with a unanimous decision win over Holland’s Ismael Londt.
It wasn’t an easy road to the title tonight for Mirko by any means. In his first fight versus Jarel Miller, he looked his age and was bullied around the ring for three rounds. Filipovic was getting beaten up in the clinch but was able to survive and win the fight on the outside. The judges scored the win for Filipovic but it could of easily went to Miller.
In his second bout of the night, Filipovic faced Ukranian stand-out Pavel Zhuravlev. The Ukrainian defeated Catalin Morosanu in his opening bout. As soon as the fight began you could see a different Mirko Crocop than the one that showed up against Miller. The Croatian used his outside game to out-strike Zhuravlev. In the third round Mirko began to write his historic ending with a dominating round and almost secured the KO in the final minutes of the match. All three judges scored the decision win to Mirko “Crocop” Filipovic. This set the stage for a final match up with K1 superstar Badr Hari but it would not be on this night. It was announced that Hari had broken his leg in his quarter final win. Replacing Badr Hari would be Dzevad Poturak of Bosnia Hercegovina.
In the other semi final fight it would now be Dzevad Poturak versus Ismael Londt who defeated Hesdy Gorges via TKO. Londt made quick work of the Bosnian earning a TKO victory in the second round setting up the show down with Filipovic in the final.
In the final fight Londt came in as the favourite to be crowned the 2013 K1 Champ as he secured both victories by TKO and looked unstoppable. Filipovic had other ideas as he entered the ring to Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys”.
On this night in Zagreb, Mirko “Crocop” Filipovic would not be denied his dream of becoming K1 Champion. In the first round Mirko worked from the outside and used slick footwork to pepper Londt with punches. The first round was won by Filipovic 10-9. In the second round it was all vintage Mirko CroCop. The Croatian landed his legendary left high kick and dropped Londt early on. The rest of the round consisted of Filipovic attempting to finish the fight as Londt basically just tryed to stay alive. This round could of been scored 10-8 for the Croatian.
In round three Londt knew he needed to secure the KO to gain victory. Londt dominated the round as Filipovic just used his footwork and straight left to keep Londt at bay. All the pressure in the third by Ismael Londt wouldn’t be enough to deny the Croatian legend his first K1 title. All three judges scored the fight unanimously for Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic and giving him his first ever K1 Championship.
At 38 years of age and written off by many of the experts, Filipovic turned back time tonight in Zagreb. One can argue that Filipovic may have lost the first fight of the tournament and shouldn’t of even been in the finals, but you cannot argue that he won his final two bouts. The Croatian proved many wrong as he decisively won the last two bouts of the tournament against top K1 opposition and secured the championship on home soil. This win by Filipovic can almost be compared to the Wimbeldon win by Goran Ivanisevic. Just like Ivanisevic, Crocop was not given much of a chance to take the title as his best years were apparently behind him. Filipovic like Ivanisevic proved everyone wrong and showed the true Croatian fighting spirit. Congratulations to the legend: Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic.
What is next for the Croatian?
Written by Mike “Croatian Crippler” Rozic
You can follow me on Twitter @ Crocrippler or on Facebook @ Croatian Crippler
@Toni, this is a sports site!
Iggy=Jew ?
@iggy what you’ll hear from me if we beat the Serbs will be okay cool, we should beat them. It’s just like any other game
Mr. Black………agreed about Suker’s goals…..but, his goals have nothing to do with how he leads the savez. A great soccer player does not make a great executive. Too many people associate the success of the national team with the head of savez (its how Markovic was able to keep power), which is not right. Savez head needs to do more to improve the domestic game. We will always have a decent to very good repka, because we produce individual talent.
on thast note check out my awesome f1 2012 game tribute
its good for you cunt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSAPMTuOlQE
remember that time kimi won the aus gp ?
man feels like it was only an hour ago or so..
yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss KIMI streaked it !!
AWESOME !
Look at the Crippler hitting the MMA strong. Good job this past week!
So even Super Mario was in attendance. He missed Bayern’s match over the weekend.
great players dont make greaqt administrators i guess
yeah i thought when he went into the job that players wouldnt fuck around because they have the experience from the football end not the business end but looks like he is a doll and not much else in the fa
ziva: as crippler said yeah.. we all know about the money thing that’s prolly all true but that just means he like moolah
stuff like drug cheating aND FIGHTIing weak opponents.. thats a bigger step and i dont buy that
Ljudi treba biti malo realni i kazati da je Mirko ovo osvojio zato sto je priredba bila u Zagrebu,prva borba je lako mogla otići na drugu stranu a dali je kojom prilikom bila vani negdje konačni Iskon bio bi sasvim drugačiji,u svakom slučaju meni je drago da je osvojio ali stvarno konačno je vrijeme da se on povuče u mirovinu !
I don’t agree with Ziva Istina at all but I like his comments. There should be some negative comments so we all get a more realistic view. To me, every coming out of Croatia is fantastic. I even try to live with Mamic. The only thing which upsets me from Ziva is his comments about Davor Suker. He’s probably not a great leader, but I’ll never forget his goals for our national team. Davor Suker is a legend!!
Mirko na pobjedničkoj presici:
Puklo mi je rebro, ali sam izdržao!
Agreed, I thought he won the next two. But, after watching that first one, there was no chance he was losing last night. We’ve seen worse in boxing, so not uncommon for a home crowd to influence the judges.
@Ziva
I agree first match was a shaky decision but you dont think he earned and won the final two bouts?
The thing about Japan is common knowledge and came from his ex managr who is upset about being fired
damn, man…..you need some help. That’s OK, that is why I am here, the ombudsman of cro sports and society.
So, did you watch the cro cop fiasco last night. Do you think he won that first match in the organized afterschool fight club tourney.
I was only sharing info on cro cop that I received from someone who worked directly with his management team. How about you answer me this?????? Did he or did he not threaten to pull out of matches in Japan unless he received a higher fee to fight? Now, be truthful in your answer.
As for me being positive/negative/truthful. Take of the homer glasses and you will see I am the most objective person on this website.
You like Cro cop, nothing wrong with that. I encourage to keep rooting for him if that is what makes you happy.
On That note here is the link to Mirko’s second round fight Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjCUlES7B_k
this is where miro comes in with a cuntish comment
is 19miro50 the same person as ziva? must be because u cannot possibly not be a cunt and still support ziva
^dont deserve*
Ziva i am getting sick of your shit, you are a massive cunt, even bigger than exists on serbian women, that’s how bad u are.
How about you say something positive for once about one croatian ever. I really wait to see the day.
Here i can predict what you reply with
“when did i not be honest about things”
i can think of a few things i have already replied to, but most recently – that cro cop uses drugs, that mirko rigs fights, u dont even know shit about mma and even so u are happy to continue your cunting cuntness and make cunty accusations about one of the greatest fighters of all time. You are a fucking cunt Ziva, sorry but you really deserve to be considered hrvati, you are that wanky.
I’ll make a prediction, cro will beat srb and you will come out with some “oh yeah we some BUT WERE STILL SHIT” comment
ffs just shut the fuck up, even with sports you know nothing about (ie – mma) you cant shut up, dick for brains
Congrats to Mirko and congrats to the organizers for staging this in ZG, because that was the only way he was going to win. For Cro Cop to lose he would have needed to been knocked out. The fat ass in the first match beat Cro Cop, so when that decision was announced we all knew what was going to happen. I guess is this version of organized afterschool fight club called K1 is on par with pro boxing, but still way behind pro wrestling.
@*The Anon..^
not sure if fix but yeah get what u are saying, either fix or dicky refereeing
and yeah as ive said elsewhere mirko should’ve retired in ’05-07
but he did fight ok in the last 2 fights didnt he ?
i watched the last one and he definitely won that for sure
Championship fight video link Mirko Crocop vs Ismael Londt
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o9YK0ukoXhM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded%26v%3Do9YK0ukoXhM
This was a fix! Cro cop should just hang them up he has sucked for do the past few years and he ain’t gonna get any better
ive only seen the final fight// i liked the way he kicked the black guy in the headsies and knocked him down.. mma it would be over and out
lol kreso… my drunk aussie brother
He clearly won the first fight, did you see how many times cro cop hit millers knee with his body.
@Dax, I agree, i thought Miller owned him too. The only way Mirko was going to lose was by knock out. Good to see him fight better in the latter matches, though.
Good objective article, Crippler!
Thanks for the report Crippler..
Good to see that Mirko still has the magic touch.
Bravo Mirko….
Thought he lost the first fight to be honest. Glad to see him win it though.
Iggy rocks
Hey we won the first ever and most recent k1-wgp’s
cheers branko and mirko : )
Good article Crippler
Can we ban Ziva from posting in this thread? I’m going to go out on a limb and say whatever he says is cuntish
Well done Mirko!
retire
MAGNIFICO!!!!!!!!
Bravo Mirko!!!