Issue 006

July 2005

Josh Barnett

The Baby Faced Assassin came to the world of MMA from a varied background: he wrestled and played American football in high school and started training judo at age 15. At 18 he discovered Muay Thai and was introduced to a Muay Thai youth camp in a South Seattle church. When he moved to Montana he trained under Sensei Jim Harrison, who was considered a legend in the world of karate. Harrison had a broad knowledge of different styles and worked with Josh in kickboxing and judo. He actively encouraged Josh to experiment with different techniques. Barnett was noticed by MMA star Matt Hume during United Full Contact Federation (UFCF): Clash of the Titans, where he choked out AMC Pankration fighter Chris Charnos in less than two minutes. 

Josh Barnett made his debut at UFC 28 where he beat Gan ‘The Giant’ McGee. Since then he has earned a record of 15-2-0.

Natural Selection or an assassination?

Josh ‘The Baby Faced Assassin’ Barnett was led down to the octagon, surrounded by his camp. He looked to be very focussed and ready for this battle — one that could really make his career. 

Randy Couture then entered to an eruption of applause from the thousands of fans that had packed themselves into the MGM Grand Casino in anticipation of one of the greatest fights in MMA history. Randy looked as cool, calm and collected as ever as he walked into the octagon. He had mentally run through this fight time after time and was confidant that the larger Barnett was going to represent another notch in his ‘W’ column.

Bruce Buffer’s voice then boomed out across the venue introducing the two men who needed very little introduction to fight fans around the world. After the deafening applause had dissipated, Big John McCarthy marched into the middle of the octagon and barked out those immortal words: “Are you ready, Josh?” “Are your ready Randy?” “Well, LET'S GET IT ON!”

Randy took the initiative and moved in quickly, backing Josh up against the fence and securing the double underhooks so applicable to his style of fighting. Randy used these to great effect and got the leverage needed to pull Barnett off the fence and onto the canvas. Randy was now in a position to apply his devastating ground ‘n’ pound technique that has resulted in so many victories for the heavyweight champ. Couture pounded away from the top position, which Barnett managed to defend to a degree but a few punches were getting through. At this time Barnett gave an example of how slippery an opponent he is by going for an unorthodox leg lock, but Randy was wise to this and managed to repel it and continued the onslaught from above. Barnett then managed to fight his way to his feet, escape an attempted guillotine choke and return to a clinch position where he fired off a few effective knees on his smaller opponent. This saw the end of the round and evidence that Josh Barnett was going to be a tough fight for Randy Couture.

Round two started out just like round one, with Couture coming out and crowding Josh into the fence and again managing to dominate enough to ensure a takedown. This time Josh managed to be offensive from the bottom and landed some good elbow shots from his back. These strikes made enough of an impact on the champ and he scrambled in order to change position, lost his strong body leverage and got turned by the bigger Barnett. Randy was now caught in the bottom position and started absorbing the punches that were being rained down by the AMC Pankration fighter. Perhaps this is where Couture’s strong pedigree in wrestling hurt him due to the fact that wrestlers are not accustomed to being on their back, maybe Josh was just too strong for Randy to fight off from that position. Whatever the reason, Randy was absorbing far too much punishment and Big John McCarthy stepped in to stop the fight and in doing so, crowned a new heavyweight champion in Josh Barnett.