Fedor/Crocop. Crocop was at his absolute peak when they met, and if you knew about MMA back then you'd know that Crocop was the best striker in the game. Fedor outstruck him, and he did it beautifully.
I actually quite enjoyed Cro Cop / Sapp, which answered the question of how does a technical striker handle a behemoth with limited striking skills. I think that this was the fight that ruined Bob Sapp ... he was never the same again.
That's only half true. Look what happened to Hoost. And he's arguably the greatest KB'er of all time.
LOL, yeah, that's true. Hoost got splattered. But Hoost seemed to want to trade with Sapp instead of carrying on with his leg-kicking strategy. He may be great, but his tactical choices were not, against Sapp.
True. Hoost showed some serious heart in those fights, because for a long time he had it all his own way in K-1. Then Sapp showed up... People mock Sapp now, but back then he was easily one of the baddest men on the planet. He was a wrecking ball! Hoost's leg-kicks were awesome, but they must have took a lot out of Ernesto in both physical and mental sense due to him hurting Sapp with them but getting burt twice as bad back, and Sapp came back like an animal after some of them! Easily some of the best faiths I've ever seen! And the atmosphere? Well, the Japanese are usually quiet! But boy oh boy was it like a soccer (we call it Football, but that's another story...) match! Amazing times in the sport back then, too.
Sapp wouldn't have won either of those fights if the refs actually enforced the rules, and penalized him for his blatant cheating. Hoost was a very good fighter, it's a shame he has 2 losses to that clown on his record.
There's a lot of truth in what you say. I saw a Cro Cop interview (and I think that nobody was more disappointed than he that Sapp turned into what some folks, probably rightly, describe as a clown. Cro Cop's win was over Sapp actually trying to win) where he said that he had talked to Sapp years after he had flushed his career down the toilet: " On the unceremonious decline of Bab Sapp: "I met him one year ago in Japan, when I fought a Japanese pro wrestler in MMA. I asked him, Bob, why are you doing this?' He is too dangerous, he is such a huge guy. I saw some of his fights, he was fighting in Europe. 99-percent of the fights he lost here in Europe, he could've kicked their asses easily. Why he didn't do that? To me, it looked like he was doing that with some intention. He just wanted to lose the fight. Unbelievable. "Actually, I didn't understand his answer (when I asked him the question). He was trying to explain to me why, but I didn't understand. Not because I don't understand English, but because I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me. I said, uh-huh, okay,' but I didn't. He's a huge guy, and enormously strong, especially in MMA. He's loses fights with guys who are 50-60 kilograms lighter than he is and he could beat them easily. Easily. Why he is doing that, I don't know."" http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/3/4...flects-on-pride-the-ufc-and-why-everybody-was Still, I would make the argument that Sapp was technically miles behind everybody else, regardless of his strength.
Being TOO muscle bound is very detrimental to fighting, and now add to his lack of experience and technique, there is no question he lost to fighters smaller than he was, but were technically proficient. I was not surprised when Sapp lost to decent sized fighters like Cro cop or Fujita, or Aleks Emelianenko or that giant Romanian Brute, or that Polish powerhouse Pudzilla, since they have the power and the skill set to win, I was surprised how he got beat by a 165 pound Minowa by submission, I still hold the theory that a 170 pound fighter with superior skill set and creativity in the ring, can defeat a giant muscle bound behemoth who is as stiff as my erect Pen1s.
Bobb could not lift weights again and he'd be a genetic freak. It's not soley down to lifting that he's that big.
