With just a two day notice, Australian fighter Anthony Perosh was called in to take on Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic as part of the UFC 110 main fight card. Ben Rothwell was forced to cancel his Saturday night bout against Cro Cop due to illness. There was no word as to what sort of illness Rothwell is suffering from, but the UFC wasted no time to finding an opponent.
Perosh told media that he was skeptical at first about taking the fight with just a 48 hour notification. After not taking the fight when it was first offered to him, he later decided that he had more to gain than to lose if he took the bout. The submission specialist is a second degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Carlos Machado. Perosh admits that he plans to take Cro Cop to the ground and submit him by any means necessary.
Here’s what Anthony Perosh had to say:
“I actually said ‘no’ (to replacing Ben Rothwell) originally. I look up to Cro Cop and he’s a fellow Croatian. My parents are Croatian and I’ve actually been training the other Croatians appearing on this UFC 110 card. I then went and watched yesterday’s (Thursday) press conference and listened to the comment Dana White made about how many fighters actually turn down opportunities. That just made me realize what a big chance this was. How could I turn down the opportunity to fight on the main card at UFC 110 against one of the best guys in the world? Not only that, the fight takes place on the UFC’s first ever show in Australia. I quickly called Joe Silva back and said, ‘yeah – I’ll do it’. There were just far too many positives than negatives as far as this opportunity was concerned. I’m not looking to make any excuses after the fight, whatever happens. I won’t complain about not being fit or taking the fight on short notice. Luckily, I have a lot of experience in this sport. I’m just treating this as another match. He’s just another opponent for me. I’m not putting Cro Cop on any kind of pedestal for this fight. It’s no secret that I’m going to try and take him down, ground-and-pound him and then choke him out. I believe I have the ground skills to do this. I always hoped I’d be back and here is my chance.”
