Fighters Only Magazine - The World's Greatest MMA Magazine - News - CroCop: "I was sparring life-or-death in Amsterdam camp"
Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic says his new training arrangements are like nothing he has even done before. Following his UFC 103 loss to Junior Dos Santos, Filipovic fired most of his camp and took up with legendary Muay Thai trainer Ivan Hyppolite of Amsterdam, Holland.
With Hyppolite controlling his camp - which has been split between Zagreb and Amsterdam - Filipovic says the intensity has been raised. In particular, where he once depended on friends for sparring and thus could not go so hard on them, he now spars with fellow professionals and they all “look for the knockout”.
Speaking about his forthcoming UFC 110 fight with Ben Rothwell, he told Croatian news portal Vecernji:
“Hyppolite was in Zagreb for one week and two weeks I was with him in Amsterdam. It took me all this time to realise that it is impossible to prepare properly without a real good camp and authoritative coach. That was the main fault in my career, I was too lazy to go away to a respected team. Now, I have Hyppolite destroying me on the pads and then I spar six minute rounds with three fresh opponents.
“The problem before was that I was sparring with friends who were doing me a favour by being there and so I could not go so hard on them, looking for the knockout. In Amsterdam, it was a struggle of life or death. I was looking for the knockout and so was my opponent. In future I will spending a full month in Amsterdam.
But fans may worry that Filipovic is once again concentrating only on his kickboxing and not working on his jiu jitsu and wrestling. In the past he has said that concentrating on ground-fighting dulled his stand-up skills, but fighting in the UFC really requires sharpness in all phases of the fight.
Asked about this, Filipovic’s terse reply was that “Stand up is what I am best at but we have not neglected ground or wrestling.“ He also commented on what would be the main difficulties of fighting in Australia.
“Adjustment to the time difference of 10 hours is difficult, but the greater the problem will be changes in the season. Here is mostly minus temperatures [at present] and there is often over 30 degrees [Celsius]! And those 25 hard hours of flying? I would rather swallow a frog!”
Crocop: I was sparring life-or-death in Amsterdam Camp
