Former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett has lived via many eras of combined martial arts historical past, together with stints in PRIDE Preventing Championships and Strikeforce.
Through the years, the heavyweight division has skilled its ups and downs by way of reputation and depth of the division. However lately, plainly not solely is heavyweight a shallow division by way of expertise, however there are only some elite fighters presently competing in your complete sport.
Barnett, who has fought among the greatest within the heavyweight division all through his profession, admits it is a dire time for his division, particularly when wanting on the UFC roster.
“The heavyweight division is the worst it’s been shortly,” Barnett advised MMA Preventing forward of a call-up for Wednesday night time’s bare-knuckle battle at Blood4Blood. “Actually there are some motivated, cussed fighters with some expertise. On the high, there are actually nice fighters like (Tom) Aspinall and (Cyril) Gane.”
“It goes again to the times of PRIDE. Watching one another go to struggle, even exposing our weaknesses, exploiting them, and us going after them. You’d see fights the place folks have been taking part in a recreation of chess, after which it become a full-on violent brawl, after which again to the sport of chess. You see all of the areas actually explored and utilized.”
Not so lately. That is as a result of Barnett claims that almost all of heavyweight matches don’t showcase critical ability, however relatively flip into ugly bouts that fewer and fewer folks need to see.
“Now it is simply massive, sloppy kickboxing or massive, sloppy boxing with wrestling,” Barnett stated. “There was truly a 205-footer (Jaerton Almeida) who was submitting everybody. However then he misplaced one, then one other, after which the UFC lower him straight down, though he may need nonetheless been ranked within the high 15.”
“We want all kinds of fighters, however should you have a look at the final UFC card they did in Australia, it was somewhat robust. I do not imply to disrespect them or any of the opposite guys.”
The UFC Perth card featured two back-to-back heavyweight bouts on the primary card, with Louis Sutherland defeating Tai Tuivasa in a extremely memorable encounter and Brando Pericic scoring a second-round knockout in a conflict with Shamil Gaziev.
Peričić and Gadzhiev earned Battle of the Evening honors, but it surely wasn’t essentially a traditional masterpiece.
However Barnett stays hopeful that the heavyweight division can flip issues round with the correct technique from promoters, particularly with an eye fixed on the UFC. He feels that the UFC taking a web page out of PRIDE’s e-book can be an amazing concept to get followers excited in regards to the division once more.
“Once you speak about eight-man or 16-man (tournaments), I believe that is what the UFC needs to be doing,” Barnett stated. “The UFC must do one thing that they actually will not do and that the majority athletic commissions and (Affiliation of Boxing Commissions) and individuals who actually know half as a lot about preventing as they assume they will not even enable, and that is an eight-man event.
“They should have a two-night or one-night event and shake up the division and sort things. Give all these gamers an opportunity to get one thing monumental to goal for and see what they will get out of it. As soon as they get that, they’re going to know who’s price retaining and who’s price changing. I believe it is a no-brainer.”
Burnett cannot essentially evaluate to a few of at present’s greatest heavyweights and legends of the previous, a lot of whom are thought-about the best of all time.
However Barnett has excessive reward for fighters like rising UFC star Josh Hokit. Though he places every little thing on the road in matches, he attracts consideration together with his eccentric conduct. This instantly piqued folks’s curiosity, and Burnett hopes to see extra of it sooner or later.
“If we are able to make some deep fights and get some curiosity, then it can occur,” Barnett defined. “If individuals are compelled to look at a recreation as a result of it is entertaining, it does not matter if (Josh) Hawkitt was higher than this man or that man.
“However he is taking part in an amazing recreation and entertaining folks, and he is simply doing what he does throughout the confines of who his potential opponents are at present.”
There may be new hope for the heavyweight division, not less than on the subject of the UFC.
On the UFC White Home card scheduled for June, former two-division champion Alex Pereira is anticipated to maneuver to heavyweight and problem Cyril Gane for the interim title, with the winner anticipated to face Tom Aspinall if cleared to re-enter.
There’s additionally Olympic gold medalist Gable Stevenson, already signed to the UFC roster, together with his debut date booked for July’s UFC 329 as a part of Worldwide Battle Week.
Whereas that is simply two items of the puzzle, Barnett wish to see extra heavyweights probably signing with the UFC to see what they will do and hopes it can deliver pleasure to the division.
“The issue is there’s additionally an absence of consistency,” Barnett stated. “I believe that is one other factor that individuals are actually in search of. They need to see consistency in efficiency as effectively. When a man comes on the market and blows it up and goes on a profitable streak, after which the following recreation he fully fails, you are like OK, rattling it. The place can we go from right here? And the way can we restore it?”
Burnett refuses to surrender on the heavyweight division and feels he has a path to regaining fame within the division, particularly within the UFC, but it surely will not occur in a single day.
Maybe which means scouting extra heavyweights to compete on the Contender Sequence, or possibly it means mentoring younger athletes who by no means considered preventing till they tried it out.
“This divide will be fastened,” Barnett stated. “I believe so. Nevertheless it takes somebody with the correct imaginative and prescient and understanding to know tips on how to repair it.”
