Dream Blows Up Cro Cop’s Spot, Confirms Signing. So Is He Officially a Scumbag Now?

(Word is he also stole several pairs of those UFC gloves, the bastard.)

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has yet to admit that he really did screw the UFC by bailing on them for Dream after his victory over Mostapha Al-Turk at UFC 99, but it seems as if Dream has gone ahead and outed him anyway.  USA Today’s Sergio Non said he got an email from Mike Kogan, of FEG’s American parent company, confirming that Cro Cop had signed a three-fight deal with the Japanese organization.  If true, this would make Cro Cop look like a dirty, low-down liar, since he initially claimed that it was all a baseless rumor before then switching his stance and referring to it as a “business secret” that he couldn’t discuss. (P.S. Al-Turk’s proposed appeal of the eye-poke incident?  Yeah, that isn’t going anywhere.)

So here’s our ethical question of the day: Is Cro Cop wrong for ditching the UFC like this, or is he just looking out for his own interests the same way the UFC does when they ditch fighters?

To answer this, first we have to examine what is particularly scumbaggish about Cro Cop’s decision to flee the UFC after one easy fight.  Technically, he didn’t have a deal with the UFC beyond this fight, so there’s no legal issue.  Dana White said they agreed to the fight over the phone and made plans for him to sign a longer contract at a later date.  It’s worth asking, if Cro Cop had gotten knocked out by one of Mostapha Al-Turk’s looping right hands, would the UFC still have signed him to that contract?

The answer is, probably not.  What good to them is a Cro Cop who can’t even beat someone at the bottom of their heavyweight ladder?  In other words, they would have made the same vague verbal commitment about the future as Cro Cop did, but would probably have had no problem forgetting all about it once it no longer seemed like a good deal for them.

In that sense, the UFC has no legitimate gripe here.  Yes, Cro Cop used them and abused their trust, but that’s not so different than what the UFC habitually does when they drop fighters who are under contract, without offering them any compensation at all.  If they wanted Cro Cop under contract, they should have made him sign one.  They didn’t, and they got screwed, but that’s how it goes.

However, just because you screw someone who would have been equally willing to screw you under different circumstances, that doesn’t mean you aren’t still an asshole.  The issue here is intent.  

If Cro Cop fed us all that crap about the UFC being a black spot in his career that he wanted to erase while knowing full well that he was Dream-bound, then yeah, he’s a scumbag.  If he reevaluated his situation after beating a practically hand-picked opponent and decided he’d be better off fighting in Japanese freak shows than facing the UFC’s crop of legitimate monsters, then he’s just a joke of a fighter who we should never again take seriously.  

Either way, no one goes to Dream because they want to prove themselves against the best heavyweights in the world.  They go there to get paid.  That’s what Cro Cop is doing.  It doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person.  It just makes him a kind of pathetic sell-out.  Whether the money is worth the loss of dignity and respect, that’s something Cro Cop will ultimately have to decide, most likely while he’s punching some cartoon character in the face on New Year’s Eve.

(BF)