Pride FC In 2001, Filipović began his switch to fighting in
mixed martial arts promotion
Pride Fighting Championships, citing personal challenge as well as dissatisfaction with K-1 salaries. A year later, he also left his job at the anti-terrorist unit in order to focus fully on his martial arts career. Cro Cop's first 6 professional MMA fights were in
K-1 2001 GP Final,
PRIDE FC and the New Year's events
Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye. He defeated veterans
Kazuyuki Fujita (twice) and Japanese legend
Kazushi Sakuraba, while drawing with
Nobuhiko Takada and reigning
PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva.
Early PRIDE career Now fighting exclusively in PRIDE, Cro Cop's 7th MMA fight was against former title challenger
Heath Herring, who sported a 20–8 record and had gone the distance with current champion
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in addition to fighting soon-to-be champion
Fedor Emelianenko, against whom he lost when the doctor had to stop the fight after the 1st round. Cro Cop defeated Herring via body kick and punches 3 minutes into the fight. In his 8th fight, he became the first fighter to defeat legendary striker
Igor Vovchanchyn by
KO (with his trademark head kick). This was witnessed as a passing of the torch in the heavyweight division, as Vovchanchyn went on a decline and Cro Cop continued his run at the heavyweight title. Cro Cop then defeated
Dos Caras Jr. via head kick KO in 46 seconds, and then told the fans that he would see them in his next fight for the title against Fedor Emelianenko.
PRIDE Interim Heavyweight Championship After a contractual dispute between PRIDE and Fedor Emelianenko, PRIDE matched up Cro Cop against former champion
Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira for the
PRIDE Interim Heavyweight Championship. Cro Cop dominated early in the stand up; even knocking Nogueira down at the end of the round which prompted
Yuji Shimada to wave the fight off, but the bell had already rung. At the start of the second round, Cro Cop was taken down, mounted and eventually submitted via
armbar in the second round, suffering the first loss of his career.
PRIDE 2004 Heavyweight Grand Prix and comeback After the loss to Nogueira, Cro Cop scored back to back first-round
TKO's of
Ron Waterman and
Yoshihisa Yamamoto. It was after these performances that he was drawn into the bracket of the
2004 Heavyweight Grand Prix. In what was seen as the biggest upset in recent history at the time, Cro Cop was KO'd by former
UFC Heavyweight Champion Kevin Randleman at 1:57 of the very first round, being eliminated in the opening round of the tournament where he was favored to be a finalist or even win it all. It was after this tournament that Cro Cop went on a seven fight win streak from 23 May 2004 until 26 June 2005. He began by fighting 1 month after the loss to Randleman, against
Hiromitsu Kanehara, a seasoned
RINGS veteran. Cro Cop won by a
unanimous decision (the second decision victory of his career). He then knocked out Shungo Oyama 2 months later in 1 minute. A month after that, Cro Cop scored a head kick knockout 2 minutes into his fight with
Alexander Emelianenko (brother of the champion). Staying busy, Cro Cop defeated former
UFC Heavyweight Champion and reigning
King of Pancrase Josh Barnett 2 months later at PRIDE 28, when Barnett injured his shoulder only 46 seconds into the fight. 2 months after that, Cro Cop avenged his loss to Randleman by
guillotine choke at PRIDE's new year show. After defeating Randleman, Cro Cop stated that he wished to fight former
UFC Heavyweight Champion and
PRIDE 2000 Grand Prix Champion Mark Coleman. In the pre-fight interviews, Coleman repeatedly stated that he was going to take Cro Cop down and pound him out, while Cro Cop said there's no way he would be taken down and that he would defeat Coleman. At PRIDE 29, Cro Cop stuffed every single one of Coleman's take down attempts, staggered Coleman with straight lefts before knocking him out at 3:40 of the first round. Cro Cop had defeated 3 former UFC Heavyweight champions back to back, and said in the ring after defeating Coleman: I'm still standing, and I'm still waiting for a title fight.
Emelianenko Fedor, you are next. Cro Cop faced Emelianenko's teammate, Ibragim Magomedov at
PRIDE Critical Countdown 2005, winning by a body kick TKO in the 1st round (his 6th first round finish in a row). Emelianenko cornered Magomedov for this fight, and after the fight, stepped into the ring and shook hands with Cro Cop as the two posed with the championship belt. Cro Cop finally received a chance to fight Fedor for the
Pride Heavyweight Championship.
PRIDE title fight with Emelianenko In the first round, Cro Cop stunned and broke Emelianenko's nose with two quick straight left hands. He discolored Fedor's midsection with powerful body kicks. Emelianenko was then able to get the fight to the ground and land several body shots and, as the fight progressed, Emelianenko became more and more dominant, winning most of the stand up exchanges and scoring several takedowns. After 20 minutes, Emelianenko was awarded a unanimous decision victory. The fight was awarded fight of the year by mmafighting.com and fight of the decade by
Sports Illustrated.
Post-title shot and PRIDE 2006 Openweight Grand Prix After the loss to Emelianenko, Cro Cop defeated Josh Barnett at
PRIDE 30 by a unanimous decision, and then dropped a
split decision loss to hard hitting K-1 veteran
Mark Hunt at
PRIDE Shockwave 2005. Coming into the 2006 Openweight Grand Prix, Cro Cop TKO'd two Japanese legends, Pancrase veteran
Ikuhisa Minowa in the opening round, and
1992 Olympic Judo Gold Medalist Hidehiko Yoshida in the quarterfinal. On his 32nd birthday, he met Wanderlei Silva at
Pride Final Conflict Absolute in the semi-finals, where he put on one of his best performances, defeating the Middleweight champion with his trademark head kick knockout. This put him in the final against Josh Barnett, a fighter whom he would face for the third time in his career. After exchanging in the stand up, Cro Cop was able to posture in Barnett's guard - landing many punches. At 7:32 of the first round, Barnett tapped to strikes, earning Cro Cop his first belt in his MMA career - the
PRIDE 2006 Openweight Grand Prix championship. Josh Barnett would later say - despite facing top fighters like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Randy Couture, Frank Mir and Andrei Arlovski - that Cro Cop was the best fighter he ever faced in his career. After winning the belt, Cro Cop revealed some more of his emotions behind the victory in the backstage interview with
Frank Trigg, All I can say is this is the happiest day of my life. Definitely. I was waiting for this for 10 long years and finally - I knew that I'm the best, but some circumstances just didn't let me do that. To go to the end, and I proved to all the people who were talking that I'm finished, that I'm done after Fedor's fight, that I am number one. Believe it or not, and I swear with everything I got, I told myself, "If I don't take this belt, it will be my last MMA fight in my life." I would quit fighting, I swear. And that's why I said, "now or never". And plus I was training like never before, and I was motivated, and I knew this is it. There is no [bad] blood between us [myself and Silva.] I would like to know how he is, and I would like to shake hands with him. That's all. I have nothing against him, really. But I told you before, he is just acting weird and he refused any kind of contact, but I'm not mad at Wanderlei, I don't hate him. I respect him as a fighter, and I would like to see him if he's still here. I'm very happy, this is the day of my life, and I'm only sorry for one thing - that my father couldn't live long enough to see my success. He died 12 years ago and I dedicate this belt for my father. After his victory at the 2006 Openweight Grand Prix, a rematch between Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko failed to materialize and on 12 December 2006 Cro Cop pulled out of the New Year's Eve event, citing both a foot injury and Emelianenko's commitment to meet Mark Hunt at the card in question. Through his official website, Cro Cop revealed "I still can't kick like I want to. It's the best that we give more time to this injury to heal. I want to be in perfect shape for my next fights." Cro Cop has often been cited as being one member of the "Holy Trinity of PRIDE" (alongside Rodrigo Nogueira and Emelianenko.) These 3 heavyweights were considered anywhere between number 1–3 at any point in time between 2003 and 2007, and are often looked at as the "golden age" of MMA.
Ultimate Fighting Championship In December 2006, rumors began to surface about Cro Cop entertaining offers from other mixed martial arts organizations; the Ultimate Fighting Championship was one of the promotions that Cro Cop confirmed came forward with an offer. Rumors continued to circulate about Cro Cop's future with the Pride FC organization and media websites were reporting that Cro Cop had chosen the UFC for his future. It was announced during the pay-per-view of
UFC 66 that Cro Cop indeed signed with the UFC.
UFC debut Mirko made his UFC debut at
UFC 67 on Saturday, 3 February - which featured fellow debutants and future UFC champions
Quinton Jackson,
Lyoto Machida and
Frankie Edgar - stopping the undefeated prospect
Eddie Sanchez by TKO at 4:33 of the very 1st round. Average betting for this fight was around -1200 for "Cro Cop" and +800 for Eddie Sanchez, the biggest gap for underdog/favorite in UFC history. It has been speculated that the reason Cro Cop did not receive an immediate title shot - despite being ranked #2 across many media outlets - was due to his lack of popularity with the UFC audience.
UFC title eliminator On 21 April 2007, Cro Cop faced
Gabriel Gonzaga at
UFC 70 in
Manchester, United Kingdom to determine who would challenge reigning champion
Randy Couture for the heavyweight title. In what was seen as an upset by many in the MMA world, Gonzaga won with a head kick knockout at 4:51 of the 1st round. Cro Cop later said about the fight, He hit me at least 10 or 15 times, clean shots to the head. It was a miracle that I didn't start bleeding. Maybe it would have been better for me if he had cut me, as the referee would stop the fight. But when we stood up I saw 3 opponents. I was finished already. I took too many shots to the head. I was totally out of control. He threw a high kick, it landed on my head and that was it. But I'm a fighter and there's no shame in falling down, only not to rise again. But that's my life, you cannot win all the time. But of course the goal is that you must try [to always win]. It was my mistake. He did what he had to do. He had his plan and he threw too many elbows and I lost the fight and that's it.
End of first UFC stint Cro Cop's next fight was on 8 September 2007 at
UFC 75 against
French kickboxer
Cheick Kongo, which he lost by unanimous decision with 29–28 on all three scorecards. There was some controversy, as Kongo landed 3 illegal groin strikes but was not even deducted a point. Cro Cop trained with
Remy Bonjasky and
Gilbert Yvel, and 2003 Abu Dhabi Combat Club champion grappler
Dean Lister for this fight. Lister joined Cro Cop at his home town for a month to train for this upcoming bout. Cro Cop's coach was Vos Gym's main trainer and
muay thai practitioner Ivan "Hydro" Hippolyte.
Dream On 12 February 2008, Cro Cop announced a visit to Japan on his blog. With the foundation of the new MMA event, '
Dream', co-established by
FEG running
K-1 Hero's and the former
Yarennoka! organizing committee members which had managed
Pride FC, Cro Cop officiates ending his career in UFC and the participation into the new event. Fight Entertainment Group confirmed on 11 March 2008 that Cro Cop would face
Tatsuya Mizuno at
Dream 1 on 15 March at
Saitama Super Arena,
Saitama,
Japan. When asked about Cro Cop's current contract status with the UFC and whether it would interfere with his participation in '
Dream' events, Dream producer and front man Keiichi Sasahara said, "Though I can't share specific details about his contract, there will not be any foreseeable problems arising." Cro Cop was vague in answering the question himself, qualifying his response by mentioning his intent to return to the UFC sometime in the future.Well, as you all know, I had a bad period in my last two fights, which I'd lost in the UFC, I don't want anyone to think that I'm running away from the UFC, but I was thinking a lot about how to continue with my career, and I think in this moment, I think Dream is the right place for me. Another thing is that I never liked fighting in the cage. I always liked to fight in the ring. The second thing is that I liked fighting in Japan. Japan is like my second home—I feel like I'm home in Japan. All those reasons [have brought me] here, and I'm very happy that I'm going to fight here in Japan. But of course, one day, I don't know when, but definitely I'll be back in the UFC to show that it was just a bad period for me. Now I'm fully recovered, physically and mentally, most important mentally. After almost half of the first round saw Overeem takedown Cro Cop twice and the two fighters exchanging stand-up and ground strikes (with Cro Cop sustaining a cut) the bout was stopped and declared a no contest due to Overeem landing multiple knees to the groin of Cro Cop, who stated after the match that he had wanted to continue to fight, as evident by his remaining in the ring, but the ringside doctor would not allow him to continue. His manager stated that the injury was not serious and that a rematch as soon as possible was sought. Cro Cop said that he was planning for a long fight and a KO towards the end. He expressed frustration and quoted "I'm angry it ended this way, it seemed as if he was the dominant one, however, I wasn't in trouble for a second and was waiting for my opportunities. I prepared very well because I thought the match could last a while. I thought I would knock him down in the end." In recording the fight, Cro Cop's corner relayed to the announcers that his right testicle had been lodged inside of his body and that he could not continue. He later limped out of the arena.
Return to the UFC '' in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. On 18 May 2009, Cro Cop issued a press release on his official website and his MMAid account stating his scheduled return to the
UFC. His first match upon returning was at
UFC 99 in
Germany against
Mostapha al-Turk. During the bout, Cro Cop knocked down al-Turk with punches within the first round, then allowed him to stand. The fight ended when Cro Cop finished al-Turk with a flurry of punches that left al-Turk unable to defend himself. After the one-fight agreement with the UFC, it was announced Cro Cop was scheduled to return to
Dream to face
Siala "Mighty Mo" Siliga on 20 July at
Dream.10. On 3 July 2009, it was reported that he might have re-signed with the UFC after getting an offer "he couldn't refuse" by UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta, who personally flew to Cro Cop's residence in
Zagreb. It was later confirmed at the UFC Fan Expo by Fertitta that Cro Cop had indeed signed a three-fight contract with the UFC. Cro Cop fought up and coming striker
Junior dos Santos at
UFC 103. During the third round, Cro Cop sustained an uppercut to his left eye that caused him to submit by waving his hand at the referee and motioning that there was a problem with his eye. The fight was officially stopped due to submission, giving Dos Santos the win. After the fight, Cro Cop showed signs of frustration, stating, "I don't feel the hunger anymore. I started playing it safe, I'm not ready to take risks." He hired legendary former Muay Thai champion
Ivan Hippolyte and revamped his whole training team. Cro Cop was scheduled to face
Ben Rothwell on 21 February 2010 at
UFC 110. Just days before the fight, Rothwell was forced to withdraw from the event because of an illness. Australian fighter
Anthony Perosh stepped in to replace Rothwell. During the fight, Cro Cop dominated for two rounds before opening a cut on Perosh's forehead which forced a doctor stoppage before the third round and awarded the TKO win to Cro Cop, who fought despite receiving a cut in training that required stitches. Cro Cop next fought against fellow former Kickboxer
Pat Barry at
UFC 115 in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. After being knocked down twice to the canvas in the first round by Barry's strikes, he won the second round after utilizing his ground game. The third round saw Cro Cop open up with a head kick followed by an
axe kick to Barry's head. He ended the fight with a strong flurry, dropping Barry against the cage where he continued his assault with numerous punches to the face. He then took his back and defeated Barry by
rear-naked choke, earning him
Submission of the Night honors which Cro Cop had joked to Dana White and the crowd earlier that he deserved it. Prior to the Barry fight, Cro Cop was detained by Canadian officials, who threatened to deport him. He revealed that the Canadian officials had asked for details of his activities in the Lučko ATJ in which he had served, his service starting several years after the
Croatian War of Independence. He was held for six hours. Cro Cop faced former UFC heavyweight champion
Frank Mir on 25 September 2010 at
UFC 119, replacing an injured
Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira. There was a brief scare the weekend before the fight when Cro Cop suffered an eye injury in Croatia during his final day of training, but upon arrival in the U.S., was medically cleared to compete. Neither fighter managed to deliver any significant damage to the other until Cro Cop was defeated by Mir at 4:02 of the third round by KO due to a knee strike to the head. In a later interview for a Croatian television station, Cro Cop stated that he suffered a disc herniation three weeks before the fight with Mir. He decided not to inform the UFC about this injury because he believed it would seem as if he was trying to pull out of the fight. Cro Cop was defeated by Ultimate Fighter alumnus
Brendan Schaub on 19 March 2011, at
UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones by way of KO at 3:44 of the third round. Shortly after the knockout loss to Schaub,
Dana White stated that Cro Cop is most likely retiring. Since this time, Dana White has appeared to have had a change of heart. In a recent interview, White said: "This guy wants to fight again, and I owe him another fight." White also added "Do I think he should have retired? Yeah," White said. "But I don't think he's in one of these situations like Chuck Liddell, who needed to retire right then. He's a man, a grown man, and if he wants to continue to fight, that's his right." In his last fight with the UFC, Cro Cop was defeated by
Roy Nelson at
UFC 137 by TKO due to punches in round 3. Even though he looked to be in a good physical condition for the fight, he still didn't look like the same fighter from his days in PRIDE FC. In an interview to a Croatian television station, Cro Cop revealed that he suffered an arm injury in training 10 days before the fight. Cro Cop said the injury came as a result of him sparring with Pat Barry and that the doctors told him he had to go into surgery because a tendon had separated from a bone, but he refused. He decided to go through with the fight without informing the UFC officials about his injury. Mirko defeated Ray Sefo by unanimous decision. Cro Cop fought on 27 May 2012 at
K-1 World MAX 2012 World Championship Tournament Final 16 in
Madrid, Spain against
Loren Javier Jorge, winning by knockout in the second round with a left uppercut. He faced
Randy Blake at the
K-1 World Grand Prix 2012 in Tokyo final 16 on 14 October 2012. In the third round, after a break and restart, Cro Cop attempted to apologize for a late uppercut, failing to put his hands up to defend and leading to a straight punch by Blake that resulted in a knockdown. Despite this incident, Cro Cop was able to outfight the American en route to a majority decision win. He was scheduled to fight at
Cro Cop Final Fight 2013 on 15 March 2013 in Zagreb, and expressed his desire to face
Gökhan Saki. The event was then merged with the
K-1 World Grand Prix 2012 Final, and was the first
K-1 World Grand Prix held outside of Japan. He faced American boxer
Jarrell Miller in the quarter-finals where the panel of judges awarded Cro Cop a unanimous decision due to Cro Cop landing more significant strikes. He advanced to the semi-finals where he outpointed
Pavel Zhuravlev to another unanimous decision. In the final, he fought
Ismael Londt and floored the Suriname fighter with his patented left high kick in round two en route to yet another unanimous decision victory to win the tournament, thirteen years after he had finished as runner-up in 1999. He lost to
Remy Bonjasky by a widely disputed
majority decision in a rematch at
Glory 14: Zagreb in Zagreb on 8 March 2014. He was set to rematch Pat Barry at
Glory 17: Los Angeles in
Inglewood, California on 21 June 2014 but Barry withdrew from the fight for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by
Sergei Kharitonov. Kharitonov then also withdrew, however, and was replaced by Jarrell Miller. Cro Cop won the rematch, against Jarrell Miller, by unanimous decision.
Return to MMA On 8 August 2012 news came that Cro Cop had said that he would like to return to MMA, and on 31 December 2012, he made his comeback against former
sumo wrestler and MMA newcomer
Shinichi Suzukawa at Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2012 in
Tokyo, Japan. He won the fight by
submission due to an
armbar at 1:18 of the first round. Cro Cop was expected to rematch with
Alexander Emelianenko in October or November 2013 in Russia. On 25 October 2013, it was reported that Emelianenko had been accused of assaulting a 63-year-old man in a bar. The fight organizer terminated the contract with Emelianenko and announced that Cro Cop would face a different opponent from Russia. Cro Cop eventually faced
Oleksiy Oliynyk, who replaced Emelianenko, on 8 November 2013 at Legends 2 in
Moscow. He lost the fight by submission in the first round. On 23 August 2014, Cro Cop defeated former 2008 Olympic judo gold medalist
Satoshi Ishii via TKO (doctor stoppage) at an
Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) event in Japan to win the
IGF Championship. Cro Cop was expected to fight
Satoshi Ishii in a rematch on 31 December 2014 for the IGF Championship. However, the rematch was canceled due to a rib injury sustained by Ishii. Cro Cop stayed on the card and a new match up was being sought for a brief period. On 1 December, it was reported that Ishii would be able to heal up in time to take the fight, and the rematch was official once again. Cro Cop defeated Ishii via TKO, landing a head kick and follow up punches just as the second round was coming to a close. Ishii was unable to make it to his corner under his own power, forcing the referee to call an end to the fight. Following his return to UFC, Cro Cop was stripped of the IGF Championship on 23 January 2015.
Retirement from kickboxing and third stint in the UFC On 20 January 2015, Bloody Elbow reported that Cro Cop had re-signed with the UFC. Days earlier, Bellator MMA CEO Scott Coker had expressed interest in signing the IGF champion. This would mark the fighter's third stint with the promotion. A rematch with
Gabriel Gonzaga took place on 11 April 2015 at
UFC Fight Night 64. After losing the first two rounds, Cro Cop landed an elbow in the clinch which rocked Gonzaga and finished the fight via TKO after landing multiple elbows and punches on the ground. The bout earned both men
Fight of the Night bonus honors.
Second retirement from MMA and anti-doping violation Cro Cop was expected to face
Anthony Hamilton on 28 November 2015 at
UFC Fight Night 79. However, on 10 November, it was announced that Cro Cop had pulled out of the fight and abruptly announced his retirement. Subsequently, on 11 November 2015, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) notified both Mirko Cro Cop and the UFC that he has been provisionally suspended due to a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation. The following day in a statement Cro Cop confirmed that he had used
human growth hormone for his shoulder injury and had admitted this to the UFC. On 25 November, Cro Cop was suspended for two years by
USADA retroactive to 9 November 2015. On 20 July 2016 UFC announced that it has terminated the remaining bouts of Cro Cop's contract. Despite admitting to the use of hGH and plasma, it was later reported that Mirko Cro Cop's USADA tests were negative. However, the 2-year suspension was not lifted, because he admitted to taking a prohibited substance.
Second MMA return In July 2016, Cro Cop announced that he was ending his retirement and would return to mixed martial arts competition in Japan. He made his return with the
Rizin Fighting Federation as part of a 16-man openweight tournament beginning 25 September 2016 in Tokyo.
RIZIN Cro Cop defeated Korean Hyun Man Myung in the first round via an
arm-triangle choke in the opening round of the tournament. Cro Cop was scheduled to face
Wanderlei Silva in a trilogy bout on 29 December in the Rizin Open Weight quarter finals. However, on 2 December, Silva withdrew from the bout. Rizin announced that Cro Cop would then face
Muhammed Lawal, who had just fought
Satoshi Ishii on December 16 at
Bellator 169. On 29 December, Cro Cop won the bout via TKO in the second round. Cro Cop handed Lawal his first loss at heavyweight, with Lawal being 9–0 as a heavyweight prior to this fight. Cro Cop faced
Baruto Kaito on 31 December 2016 in the Rizin Openweight Grand Prix Semifinals. He won the fight via knee to the body at 0:49 of the first round. Cro Cop then faced
Amir Aliakbari in the final that same night. He won the fight via knockout to become the inaugural Rizin Openweight Grand Prix champion. After winning the
Grand Prix, he left the door open to a farewell fight, saying, "It would be nice if I will be able to recover enough that I can have a farewell fight, maybe in Japan. It would be nice, but to tell you the truth I don't know how the surgery will do." Cro Cop mentioned in an interview on 20 October 2017 that he would like to rematch Fedor Emelianenko, and that he has several promotions contacting him for fights. He also addressed his injury situation, saying, "I managed to repair my knee, I was among the first in Croatia to have the transplanted stem cells in my knee. My new cartilage has come in, it's amazing! The future of medicine." It was later announced on Sakakibara's Instagram account that Cro Cop would return to fight in the RIZIN ring several more times. He faced
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka on 31 December 2017 at
Rizin World Grand Prix 2017: Final Round. Cro Cop won the fight via TKO early into the first round.
Bellator MMA On 5 March 2018 it was announced that Cro Cop has signed with
Bellator MMA. He was expected to debut on 25 May 2018 against
Roy Nelson in a rematch at
Bellator 200. However, the bout was scrapped during the week leading up to the event as Cro Cop pulled out of the fight citing an injury. The rematch against Nelson eventually took place on 16 February 2019 at
Bellator 216. Cro Cop was able to avenge his loss to Nelson, winning the fight by unanimous decision (30–27, 29–28, and 29–28). This was his tenth consecutive win and the eighth time in his career that he won a rematch. On 1 March 2019, Filipovic announced his immediate retirement following a stroke he had after the fight with Nelson. Filipovic revealed he had previous neck issues which hindered his movement and balance and that physicians strictly forbade him to fight, fearing that a blow to the head might even render him paralyzed. ==Professional wrestling career==