Jean-Claude van Damme coming to visit Mirko Cro Cop

By Al Bundy

Famous Belgian actor Jean-Claude van Damme recently found out that Mirko Filipovic was inspired as a teenager by his movies. After watching "Blood Sport", Mirko started training martial arts. So Van Damme decided to give him a phone call.

When Crocop received phone call from Van Damme, he thought someone is making fun of him. They spoke for almost an hour, and after Crocop was convinced that it is actually Van Damme, he called Van Damme to visit him in his house in Zagreb. Van Damme was very pleased and he accepted the offer.

Van Damme is shooting a movie in Bulgaria at the moment, and he will come to Zagreb on 21st or 22nd of March. He will stay in Mirko's house for 7 days, and during that time he will train in his gym and visit Mirko's house in village Privlaka, where Mirko lived as a boy.

Van Damme says that he watches MMA, but he heard about Mirko from his father, who watched one of Pride shows, and before Mirko's fight there was a short movie about Mirko. After watching it, Van Damme's father told him: "there is one great fighter who wears checkered shorts and as a teenager had your poster in his room". Van Damme says that he felt satisfaction in fact that one Pride champion found inspiration in his movies for all that Spartan work. So he decided to call Mirko.

Van Damme says that he wants to make a movie about mixed martial arts, and that Crocop would have a role in this movie. Besides Crocop, Van Damme wants Jerome Le Banner, Fedor Emelianenko and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in that movie. Van Damme says that this movie would be for mixed martial arts what "Raging Bull" (with Robert De Niro) was for boxing.

In rest of the interview, Van Damme says that he trains more now, cause he doesn't want to embarass himself in front of Crocop. He is also joking that he plans to stay for 7 days at Crocop's home, but there is possibility that it will last shorter, if he doesn't meet Crocop's expectations

They ask him about Sylvester Stallone, and he compares their relationship to Crocop and Fedor. He says they are rivals, so they can't be friends. But he also says that he hopes Crocop and Fedor will become friends, if they agree to shoot a movie together
(from vecernji.hr - translation by djoni - www.nokaut.com/forum)