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Ben Rothwell and Mirko"Cro Cop" Filipovic are no strangers to pressure, but neither are feeling it in anticipation of their upcoming scrap this weekend at UFC 110, even though both fighters are coming off of big losses.
Rothwell (30-7) dropped his UFC debut to Cain Velasquez at UFC 104 about a minute into the second round via TKO. The stoppage was viewed as early by many ringside observers, but likely just hastened the inevitable, as Rothwell appeared clearly outclassed throughout the contest.
Cro Cop (25-7) has gone 2-3 in the UFC, with his most recent loss to Junior dos Santos after calling called it quits in the third round. Soon after, the famous Croatian publicly questioned whether he still had the will to fight, a statement he later retracted, confirming desire to fulfill his UFC contract and regain the enormous success he enjoyed early on in his career.
"To be a successful fighter now, you have to go to a camp," Cro Cop said. "For all my career I [was] training at home, sparring with friends who were there to help me as a friend, doing me a favor. There were not A-class fighters. It was a mistake of mine to train like that, with friends, at home. It was a handicap I should not have given myself. In Croatia, we do not have big camps like in other countries, but I was not willing to go away to train."
A disappointing UFC run was enough to finally convince Cro Cop to bring his training up to date. He now routinely spares with "A-class" fighters looking to knock his head off.
"Now, I am making myself do this," Cro Cop said. "I wish I had done this a long time ago. I went to Holland to train with K-1 fighters for over a month for this fight. It was very hard, very new to me. Now I am training with sparring partners who are nice people, sure, but not my friends. These are sparring partners who want to knock me out in sparring. In the Croatian media they said it was 'life and death' sparring -- it was not quite life and death, but it was all out fighting, very hard. For every round, I had A-class fighters trying to knock me out."
In any event, Rothwell believes that the legendary Pride Grand Prix champion still has quite a bit left in the tank and he won't be taking the former Croation police officer lightly.
"This is not an opponent you take lightly, and would be your mistake to do so," Rothwell said. "Dos Santos said it best when he said the guy still has a lot of fight left in him. That's it man. I had to start training hard. He's gonna always bear down and stick to what he likes to do and that's his left side. He likes to do the southpaw stand-up fighter. But, then you see against Dos Santos he tried to go for a takedown. Anything is possible. He's brought in huge monster's of guys so he's obviously very worried about my weight. Things of that nature, so I'm just going to go in there and do my thing."
Doing his thing consists of working his standup and looking for knockouts, and at 6'5" 265-pounds the former IFL champion enjoys a distinct size advantage over the 6'2" 226-pound Croatian. A point not lost on Cro Cop.
"He is a big guy, much bigger and taller than I am," Cro Cop said. "He is very tough as well. But I am ready. I don't think anyone should underestimate me. When you have a self-made fighter like I am, with the PRIDE belt, it's not good to underestimate me."
Both MMA veterns for 9 years, Rothwell and Cro Cop bring a wealth of experience to the table, with Rothwell going undefeated in 9 fights with the IFL; and Cro Cop winning Pride's Open-Weight Grand Prix tournament on his birthday in 2006. This won't be an easy task for either fighter.
