Mirko's ex coach interview, 14th September 2007 - updated!

Fruscht · 09-14-2007, 10:12 AM

I've seen a few threads, but none of them had the translation of the article.

Link: http://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/biv...rt/358483.aspx

The translation:

The storm is still not over from Mirko's second in a row defeat, which was also the most delicate one. Last day many stories were written about Cro Cop's questionable professional future, and Marijan Zizanovic, one of the pioneers of Thai box in Europe and Mirko's trainer from end of 1990's, gave his expert comment. At that time Mirko was on a roll, making fighters like Mike Bernardo, Musashi, Fujita and Aerts fall down. Today, the story is a little different. Although many people saw the appearance of Remy Bonjasky, Gilbert Yvel and Ivan Hippolyte as the return of stand up fighting, where Mirko used to be dominant, the results were shocking.
"Believe me, before the match I was assuring my friends that Mirko will finish the fight in the first round. Mladen Brestovac, a fighter I trained for 4 years, fought Kongo in K-1 and lost 2:1, which was a complete robbery. I remember 2000 spectators protesting. Brestovac destroyed Kongo in that match, and you can't compare Brestovac and Filipovic. I was expecting an easy and quick Mirko's victory. However, obviously some things in Cro Cop Team are not done the way they are supposed to be. First of all, I want to emphasize I deeply respect Mirko. He is undoubtly a talent and a hard worker, a worker you rarely meet at all and not just in martial arts.
There are several reasons for what's happening to him, in my opinion. First one is that he changes coaches too often. That's my subjective impression. I've been in combat sport for a long time, and I know how important continuity is. Second, I seems to me that Mirko himself is not really sure what he wants to put emphasis on, the ground fighting or the striking aspect of MMA. Mirko is an exceptional striker, and I believe his trainings should focus on that aspect.", Mirko's ex coach says.
The objections don't end here. Zizanovic claims that a lot of mistakes were made during preparations, that too much emphasis was put on the development of so called apsolute strength.
"If you work on apsolute strength, disregarding explosive strength, condition or flexibility, you wan't get a good fighter. In martial arts the most important thing is the balance between condition, flexibility and explosive power. Besides that, it's visible that Mirko lost some of his striking technique, and technique is the basis of each sport. I read somewhere that the Kostelic family [Croatia's skiers, winners of several Olympic medals], in their prime, every year before the beginning of the season, hired a coach to work on polishing of technique that got lost during the season. It's the same in martial arts. Unfortunately, Mirko today, as far as his striking is concerned, is a mere shadow of what he used to be while fighting in K-1.", Zizanovic honestly says.
Psychology of training has an impact, too.
"Mirko has quite a big number of all kind of experts, doctors, professors etc. in his team today. It's all nice on paper, however coaches prove themselves in the gym. With all due respect to education and titles, coaches are coaches because they make fighters and not because they have a title like dr. in front of their name. I think Mirko should have one coach, and that one should be a striking coach, since Mirko is, first of all, a striker like few in the world. Of course, additional trainers are needed, there are no results without a team, but one has to be in charge. It seems to me that each of those experts in Cro Cop Team does his own job without much thought on what the other ones are doing. There are too many of them, and they are not coordinated.
Which leads us to another problem, and that's a lack of classical relationship between a coach and a fighter which has to be full of confidence and respect. I don't want to promote myself, but it's a fact that I was an authority to Mirko. I respected him as a fighter, and he respected me as a coach. Today, surrounded with a huge number of experts and those who are not experts, Mirko not only doesn't have a coach he considers an authority, it's actually exactly the opposite - he is an authority to people that should prepare him for fights! That's an unnatural environment in which there can be no progress. Drogba [football player], no matter how good he is, will sit on the bench if Mourihno [his coach] says so!"
In his detailed analysis, he also mentions claims of fear in Mirko's head after the brutal defeat from Gonzaga. "There is not a single fighter that doesn't rewind a KO, knockdown or something similar in his head. Mirko is too experienced to be seriously distracted in Kongo fight by memories of a KO from the Gonzaga fight. A man of Mirko's intelligence, and he is an extremely intelligent guy, can put 2 and 2 together, rationally analyze the fight with Gonzaga and draw conclusions on the factors that led to the defeat. No, I don't think something like that played a role in the Kongo fight. People that enter the ring or octagon are not afraid. There is tension, but it's not paralyzing. I'll repeat, I think it's a matter of inadequate physical preparation.
From what I can hear, Mirko was in excellent shape. It might be true that he was ready - ready for some other sport. But not for MMA. And since psychological condition is in correlation with physical condition... well, draw your own conclusion."
Mirko mentioned retiring even before being defeated by Kongo, but his ex coach believes in his return. A big style one.
"It's his personal decision, but if I were in his place, I'd show all the weak believers in Croatia and the world who and what I am. I assure you, Mirko can still beat anyone. If he comes back to 80 percent of his K-1 days striking skills, no one in the UFC will be able to answer his attacks. And he can do it!"

Hope you like it, guys.

Edit:

OK, after translating this article, I googled a bit to find more about Marijan Zizanovic.
I found an article (link: http://www.profightstore.com/content...=details&ID=82), but I don't know how old it is. I'll translate only the things related to Mirko. If there is more interest, I could translate everything. BTW, it says in the article that Zizanovic went to Japan in 1969, when he was 24 years old. That would make him 62 years old now.

Here it is:

...
He then begun his work with Mirko Filipovic. [It doesn't says when in the article, but his 1st fight with Mike Bernardo was in 1999. Before that fight he lost to Xhavit Bajrami].
"Mirko, at that time, failed as a K-1 fighter. The Japanese demanded that a thai boxer coached him. Orsat Zovko asked me to be his coach. We were training, but the Japanese said Mirko doesn't have any chances in K-1. That's when Orsat Zovko helped Mirko a lot. He went twice to Japan on his own and asked them to give Mirko another chance. They agreed to do it, giving Mirko a chance to fight Mike Bernardo. Bernardo was a striker, a KO artist."
Zizanovic studied Bernardo for a long time and found a combination - right straight, right hook and left high kick, a combination which can still be seen in many K-1 promotional videos.
"Mirko was a very humble young man at that time, extremely hard worker. But, all sorts of people begun to revolve around him, just like they do around any other star. He couldn't handle all that pressure, and he begun to enter unnecessary conflicts. He conflicted with Branko Cikatic. Unnecessary. Anyways, I told him that we are exposed. Everyone saw the combinations we were doing, it was necessary to further advance in technique.
We started to disagree about the coaching system. Mirko is agile, quick and I insisted on using knees, but he didn't like the clinch. Which is very strange, considering he is in MMA today. I left him once, then I came back when he asked me to return, but things just didn't work out. We splitted, but in a normal way."

Rayzach · 09-14-2007, 10:21 AM

Great post - thanks for the translation!

I agree with his ex-coach. Mirko has been non-explosive in his last 2 fights. Very tentative and almost second guessing his striking...

Hopefully he can pull it all together as he is a classy guy and it would be good to see him put on a show for the North American fans