Issue 225

February 2026

UFC 30: Battle at the Boardwalk

February 23, 2001

Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA

By Brad Wharton

When Pedro Rizzo and Josh Barnett met at UFC 30, the bout could have been broadly described as ‘kickboxer vs wrestler,’ but shiny pants and singlets this was not. In 1995, Marco Ruas became a disruptor to the idea that a single family represented Brazil’s fighting interests. While the middle-class Gracie clan ruled the roost on Rio’s sunny beaches, the ‘Luta Livre’ style that Ruas represented was born in the uncompromising streets of the favelas. Ruas beat three men in one night to win the UFC 7 tournament, but it was his destruction of the giant Paul Varelans via a prolonged assault of leg kicks that put the sport on notice of a new Brazilian method. Pedro Rizzo was his top student, a burly tank of a man with sleeping pills in his hands and kicks that looked like they’d splinter a human leg. Just as Rizzo represented the more rough-and-ready aspects of the striking realm, Josh Barnett wasn’t a wrestler in the conventional sense. He was first mentored by Jim Harrison, an OG who’d made it his mission to experience as broad a spectrum of combat styles as humanly possible, distilling what he’d learned down to the techniques with the most practical applications. Barnett had found a kindred spirit. He tested what he learned in bare-knuckle fights in gyms and rec centres, arranged with like-minded individuals over internet message boards, before making his ‘professional’ debut in ’97. Harrison pushed Barnett towards the full-time tutelage of Matt Hulme at AMC Pankration, where he excelled within the team’s signature catch-wrestling philosophy. By the end of 2001, both Rizzo and Barnett were firmly in the UFC title race. There was no point putting off the inevitable.

THE BATTLE AT THE BOARDWALK 

Barnett got things started with a pair of rapid-fire jabs. Rizzo looked content to sit back, fists cocked as he sized up a big right hand. When the Brazilian finally let rip, Barnett used the opportunity to close the distance and attempt to tie him up, but it wasn’t quite there. While Rizzo looked the more disciplined of the two on the feet, his American counterpart was busier, connecting with a right hand and an inside leg kick. With their gazes locked, the pair fired off simultaneous kicks that landed bone-on-bone with a sickening thud, prompting a couple of begrudging nods of acknowledgement. Barnett got straight back to it, fooling his man with a crafty feint that created space for a nice combination of punches. Rizzo, unfazed, went to work with his signature straight right hand, catching Barnett at range behind a jab, then again as the American barrelled forward. When the grappler finally clinched up, it was brief but afforded him the opportunity to land a knee to the stomach and a right hand as Rizzo disengaged. The Brazilian mixed things up with a clinch of his own, grabbing a Thai plum after a low-kick and hammering away with short hooks, uppercuts, and the occasional knee on the inside. Barnett got his licks in too, before breaking the clinch and going low-kick for low-kick with a stoic Rizzo. 

CHANGING TEMPO

His striking may have been messy, but Barnett was landing. After another shin-to-shin clash, ‘The Babyfaced Assassin’ roared forward with a flailing left-right combo, following up with a knee. Rizzo snapped off a stiff jab that pinged his head back in response, remaining calm in the face of his opponent’s mad dogging. Not content with the verbal mind games, Barnett went heavy on the leg kicks, as if attempting to beat Rizzo at his own game. Refusing to bite, ‘The Rock’ unclipped a few more straight rights before eating a knee in return. Barnett grimaced following a thrusting kick to the body in the dying seconds of the round, but the buzzer halted his attempted rally.  

ROUND TWO

Rizzo’s kicks had, as expected, jacked up Barnett’s lead leg. But the real story of the round was the 23-year-old prospect – a heavy underdog with the bookmakers – holding his own against a former title challenger and doing so without taking the fight to the ground, where he was most effective. Rizzo went back to his jab to start the second. Barnett instigated a clinch, eating a solid uppercut for his troubles, before clipping his man with an overhand right on the way out. The American clinched again but found himself pressed against the fence, unable to exert control. Rizzo whiffed on a fastball right hand as he disengaged, allowing Barnett back to the centre where he’d follow up with a solid straight right of his own. The grappler landed another big combination as Rizzo made the error of backing up in a straight line, before catching a kick and blasting his man with a knee. The American was beginning to show signs of suffering from Rizzo’s kicks, though, repeatedly pausing to adjust the kneepad that sat just below a purpled thigh. ‘The Rock’ punished him with a swift left hook, sensing a turn of the tide. Barnett – who looked to be carrying every bit of a 22lb weight advantage in his baby fat-laden upper body – suddenly appeared hunched and sluggish. Rizzo took it as an invitation to turn up the heat, firing off punches and low kicks at a higher rate. A flowing right hook, right uppercut, left hook series landed, the Brazilian’s best work of the night. He turned his attention back to Barnett’s already battered lead leg, chopping away at it just like his mentor Ruas had done with Varelans years before. 

THE END WAS NEAR

With a minute remaining in the second round, Barnett went for broke, rolling the dice on a head kick. One last shot at beating Rizzo at his own game. It was far too telegraphed to bother the seasoned striker, but it told him everything he needed to know. He stepped back and ever so slightly to the side as his exhausted foe lurched forward with a pair of grasping, over-extended punches. Barnett’s left just about found his chin, but as Rizzo threw his counter, it must have felt like sacrificing a pawn to secure checkmate. It was the shot he’d been looking for all night, and it stopped Barnett dead in his tracks. The American was out on his feet, glassy-eyed, head and hands hanging limply while his body somehow remained upright at a 90-degree angle to his opponent. Rizzo soon put paid to that, planting his feet, loading up and uncorking an absolute screamer of a right hand against his defenceless target. The blow sent Barnett crashing to the canvas in a crumpled heap, his head cruelly propped up by the Octagon fence as if to force him to look up at the man who’d put him down. Watch it here.