10 Years Ago Today: Cro Cop vs. Del Rio

[Steveweiser]

Sure it only lasted under a minute, but Del Rio had quite a few fights after this one, which surprised me. This sprung up because Dave Meltzer tweeted this was the first main event Mauro Ranallo ever called. Imagine if Del Rio had won, he may never have become Del Rio.

[thetower52]

That was satisfying

[Deleted]

Damn, Del Rio should've had someone much easier in his debut. Getting KO'd by one kick sucks but, back then, there was no shame in getting beat by Cro Cop.

[Crusty Ruffles]

Did they really think Del Rio had a chance? Or was that just some announcer hype on Cro Cop?

[Steveweiser]

Oct 5, 2013 14:50:28 GMT -5 @irontyger said:

Damn, Del Rio should've had someone much easier in his debut. Getting KO'd by one kick sucks but, back then, there was no shame in getting beat by Cro Cop.

He had a 3-2 record going into the fight.

[Deleted]

Oct 5, 2013 14:55:04 GMT -5 Steveweiser said:

Oct 5, 2013 14:50:28 GMT -5 @irontyger said:

Damn, Del Rio should've had someone much easier in his debut. Getting KO'd by one kick sucks but, back then, there was no shame in getting beat by Cro Cop.

He had a 3-2 record going into the fight.

I should've said his PRIDE debut.

[crowwreak was WRONG]

What was the actual point of that mask?

[Mozenrath]

Oct 5, 2013 15:01:25 GMT -5 crowwreak was WRONG said:

What was the actual point of that mask?

Del Rio had not unmasked yet, and presumably did not want to blow a Mask vs Mask match to build towards in the future. This was before Del Rio was a thing yet, to where he's better off without the mask, and Dos Caras Jr. still had a lot of name value for him, and it'd just blow it.

[crowwreak was WRONG]

Oct 5, 2013 23:08:17 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Oct 5, 2013 15:01:25 GMT -5 crowwreak was WRONG said:

What was the actual point of that mask?

Del Rio had not unmasked yet, and presumably did not want to blow a Mask vs Mask match to build towards in the future. This was before Del Rio was a thing yet, to where he's better off without the mask, and Dos Caras Jr. still had a lot of name value for him, and it'd just blow it.

Yeah, but compare that mask to the actual Dos Caras mask. The mask he wore in that fight covered about as much of his face as Vader's

[Razor Gives It A 4/10]

I guess you could say Del Rio was on Cro Cop's Wheel of Agression

[aaronslip]

Rematch!

[Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster]

Honestly I would both mark and laugh like a bitch if for some unknown reason Cro Cop was brought in as a special guest ref during a Del Rio match.

[Deleted]

Inb4 someone quotes Chael Sonnen: "Cro Cop's opponents took dives in Japan."

Oops...

[rybackrulez]

Oct 5, 2013 14:50:28 GMT -5 @irontyger said:

Damn, Del Rio should've had someone much easier in his debut. Getting KO'd by one kick sucks but, back then, there was no shame in getting beat by Cro Cop.

Pride loved freakshow fights and also loved building guys like fedor, wanderlei, and cro cop using jobbers

Apparently ADR was paid more money to lose then win.

Which is also a thing pride did worked fights

Though cro cop was a beast. Left foot hospital. Right foot cemetary

[Deleted]

I don't know that he was paid to take a dive, but I have heard that such things happened in PRIDE. They did pad the records of a lot of their stars in what were little more than jobber fights. This would seem like one of them.

[Deleted]

Oct 6, 2013 7:35:23 GMT -5 rybackrulez said:

Oct 5, 2013 14:50:28 GMT -5 @irontyger said:

Though cro cop was a beast. Left foot hospital. Right foot cemetary

the left is the cemetary kick

[Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster]

Oct 7, 2013 20:09:05 GMT -5 @devolution said:

I don't know that he was paid to take a dive, but I have heard that such things happened in PRIDE. They did pad the records of a lot of their stars in what were little more than jobber fights. This would seem like one of them.

Well with Cro Cop vs Del Rio it would most likely be a case of the latter rather than the former because I'm sure he was pretty much a f*** it this guy will have to do choice as Pride FC needed to find Cro Cop an opponent at short notice for the first Bushido so they issued an open challenge and even more than 50 competitors stepped forward they were mostly rubbish so they chose him since he had a name.

That and even though yeah there were quite a few fights fixed in Pride during the early years I really doubt that they would waste money on having Del Rio take a dive in a fight where he was 95% most likely going to lose badly.