Mighty Mo

(Another one of Mirko's zany practical jokes?)

Yesterday's Dream.6 press conference got off to a fun start after news that Mighty Mo Siliga has had to pull out of his bout with Sergei Kharitonov with an injury suffered in training. That's when Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic stepped up to offer his services, despite the fact that he's also scheduled to take on Alistair Oveerem on the same night. Was this just another attempt to get under Oveerem's skin in their ongoing war of words, or could it be that Cro Cop is trying to make up for lost time?

At least it sounds like a sincere offer:

“Well I've just heard that Mighty Mo is not going to fight since he is injured,” said a serious Filipovic. “We are all professional fighters. I'm ready to jump in, in his place. If Dream agrees, I'm ready to fight two fights tomorrow. It doesn't mean that I underestimate Alistair, I would like to fight him first –- the fourth fight against him and the eleventh fight against Sergei. Sergei definitely trained hard for this and I'm sure he doesn't want to go home without a fight.”

Oveerem felt a little slighted by the offer, as you might imagine, telling reporters, "I think after I fight Mirko, he will never fight again."

Thankfully, Sergei Kharitonov stepped in to talk some sense:

("We'll see who is bag of douche.")

Dream's sixth event — which goes down September 23rd in Saitama, Japan — may just feature its most compelling card yet. The show's centerpiece is the semi-finals/finals of the middleweight grand prix, where Melvin Manhoef, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, and Zelg Galesic will do battle to crown a single champion. A welterweight strap will also be on the line, decided by the long-awaited match between Nick Diaz and Hayato "Mach" Sakurai. And now it looks like two big-name heavyweight bouts will be part of the action as well.

Over the weekend, PRIDE vet and reigning Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem revealed that he would be facing Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic at Dream 6. Overeem and Cro Cop have been getting their trash-talk on lately — who isn't these days? — with the Demolition Man calling Filipovic a "douche-bag" who ducked him in favor of fighting cans. Cro Cop hasn't fought since March, when he earned his first post-UFC victory with a 56-second TKO rout of Japanese can Tatsuya Mizuno. Since then, Overeem has competed and won twice, scoring a quick knockout of Tae Hyun Lee at Dream 4 in June, and an almost-as-quick submission of Mark Hunt at Dream 5 in July.

This month's Dream card will also feature the return of Russian PRIDE standout Sergei Kharitonov, who hasn't fought since his TKO victory over Alistair Overeem at a K-1 HERO's event last September. Kharitonov will be facing Siala-Mou "Mighty Mo" Siligia, the Samoan-American K-1 mainstay who defeated Justice Smith last month at the K-1 World GP 2008 in Hawaii. Mo is just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, and hasn't done the MMA thing since last June, when he beat down Ruben Villareal at K-1 Dynamite!! USA.

Good God, this guy has the best haymaker we've seen since Clubber Lang. Who knows if the Cro Cop fight will actually come together, but we'd love to see it. Check out Mo throwing bombs during his K-1 kickboxing career. Could his power-punches trump Mirko's head-kick? We say: Maybe!