Mirko Cro Cop (26-7-2) talked about his victory over Anthony Perosh, on the post-fight press conference:
"I can say I was satisfied with my performance. I didn't fight my original opponent. He canceled the fight. Perosh jumped in, and I'm grateful to him for that. He showed great courage and guts. He came to fight."
"But where I'm at in the heavyweight division, I don't know. I believe I belong in the top, so we'll see in the next fights. It depends on the next fight.""I changed the way I used to train. I spent four weeks in Amsterdam at Vos Gym training with a new coach, Ivan Hippolyte, a legend of Muay Thai. And this was the first time in my career I came (to the location of the fight) two weeks before (the fight) to adapt. I always underestimate so many things... I'm a very experienced fighter, but even in Japan I came two days before. In my last fight in the States, I came two days before. They needed to wake me up before the fight. My coach needed to put ice on my back to wake me up. So I just underestimate so many things. Of course there is fuel left in me, but you need to keep training more to keep in the game."
What's next for the former PRIDE superstar? Dana White says Mirko will get back in the octagon soon, and most likely against his original opponent, Ben Rothwell:
"I think what we do is we do the fight that was supposed to happen tonight. We'll make that fight happen, and obviously Mirko didn't have a rough night tonight... Ben isn't out because he's injured or anything. He got a stomach virus, so hopefully we can make this fight quick and put this one together soon."
"Ring rust is a real thing, and he got to get in there and at least work on his timing and everything else. Hopefully, we can back-to-back make this fight with Rothwell now and make it happen pretty soon – get him back in there and keep him active and busy."
HT: mmajunkie