As an aspiring mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, Pat Barry had posters of Mirko "Cro-Cop" Filipovic on his bedroom wall and spent hours watching him in action on television. On Saturday, the 30-year-old American heavyweight will face his idol in the Octagon at UFC 115: Liddell v Franklin in Vancouver. Barry still considers the former Pride champion one of the five "scariest guys on the planet".
"The reason why there are guys like me with the level of fighting that I have in MMA nowadays is because of him," he said. "He caused the rest of us to evolve. So is it difficult to separate star-struckness from - it being a regular fight? Absolutely." Barry, who entered the sport from a kickboxing background two years ago, views tonight's fight card as an indication of how far he progressed in a short space of time. He has won five and lost one of his bouts.
"Who in their right mind, with the amount of experience that I have, which is only two years in MMA, can walk up to "Cro-Cop" and just shake his hand like he's a regular guy?" Barry said after the pre-match press conference. He is clearly in awe of his opponents MMA record of 26 wins in 35 fights. Filipovic, 35, a former police special forces officer and former member of the Croatian parliament, is still widely regarded as one of the top heavyweights in the world but has struggled to find his form since joining the UFC in 2007. He was previously a K1 fighter and former Pride champion.
He cited knee problems and has spoken of the difficulty adjusting to fighting in a cage rather than a ring. He has a won three and lost three UFC record and one of those wins was a controversial one over Mostapha al Turk at UFC 99 in Germany. "I had three surgeries for the knee and, of course, it reflected [in] my kicking," the 35-year-old said. "I was afraid to kick ... it was still very fresh but I decided to take the risk.
"I'm just a fighter. I like the sport. I like fighting, I like competition. But you need to make the decision with the head, not with the heart." Fully recovered and with his UFC contract up for renewal after this fight, Filipovic is aware of the significance of this fight. A win for Barry, meanwhile, would catapult him up the competitive heavyweight division. "I've obviously been doing something right where somebody sees some potential, or likes what I'm doing, or something is working because my name is being used in the same sentence as his [Cro-Cop]," Barry said.
The fight is the joint main event alongside the bout between Chuck Liddell, the former UFC light heavyweight champion, and Rich Franklin. Liddell was originally scheduled to fight Tito Orti, his opposing coach on the reality TV series and MMA competition The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 11, but Ortiz pulled out of the show in the penultimate week with a neck injury, leaving Dana White, the UFC president, desperately needing to find a stand in for the traditional end-of-series bout between the two coaches. Franklin, a former UFC middleweight champion, who has moved up into the 205lb division, came to his rescue. "I was at my house and Dana called me and informed me that Tito had pulled out of the fight due to an injury to his neck and asked if I would come out to Vegas to finish taping the show and take the fight at the end between [the] coaches," Franklin said.
"I said, 'OK, as long as everybody's cool with it', because I knew Chuck really wanted to fight Tito." Liddell, 40, is returning to the cage after a 14-month hiatus, during which there was speculation as to whether he would retire. He says he is focused on another win, in the hope of another title shot. "My timing's on," he said. "I'm in great shape, I'm ready to go." On the subject of retirement, he said: "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. [At the end of] the fight I'm going to decide what I want to do next. I plan on making another run for the title. That's what I want to do. We'll see what happens."
@Email:loatway@thenational.ae
