Josh Barnett

(Josh Barnett's most recent pro wrestling outing, courtesy of his MySpace page. If you're dying to see how the match ends, go here.)

He may still be a black sheep in the MMA family, but that doesn't mean Josh Barnett is going to hop a Greyhound for parts unknown and never call you again, even if you might want it that way.  The  "Baby-Faced Assassin" surfaced at the World Jiu-Jitsu No-Gi Championships in southern California this week long enough to win the "Ultra Heavyweight" (over 215 pounds) division with a judges' decision over Bruno Paulista on Sunday.  Barnett crowed about the victory on his Twitter account, proclaiming "Catch Wrestling lives!", much to the chagrin of BJJ competitors like Pablo Popovitch, who told Graciemag.com before this event, "[W]e can't let a guy who does catch wrestling win the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship."

Sorry, Pablo.  Guess Barnett never got that memo.  If you're wondering what Barnett's MMA future holds, apart from being the sport's unsung savior, you should check out this video interview with Scott Coker where he says that Strikeforce has been in "loose contact" with Barnett, and once he works out his issues with the California State Athletic Commission, "maybe then we'll be a little bit more interested."  You know.  If he works out those "issues."

Tekken 6 MMA Boxing Live Action Trailer - Watch more Game Trailers
(Props: Break.com Game Trailers)

Above is the live-action trailer for Tekken 6, which succeeds in being awesome despite the fact that the game itself is only briefly shown at the end. The gist is, fighters from all walks of life — Josh Barnett, Dan Hardy, and Evander Holyfield, among others — discuss what drew them to fighting and why they do it. I guess they're supposed to represent the different styles and mindsets in the video game, though the montage fails to include boxing kangaroos or a sentient wooden training dummy. There is, however, a Tekken 6 character that's clearly based on Roy Nelson.

(Props: Sav Sci Blog via Fightlinker)

MMA's most notorious steroid abuser is going to be juuuuuuust fine. On August 9th, just three weeks after testing positive for steroids for the third time in his career, and destroying Affliction's MMA promotion, Josh Barnett was back in Japan for Antonio Inoki's IGF Genome 9 show, where he performed in a tag-team wrestling performance with three other larger-than-life figures: Bob Sapp, Yoshihiro Takayama, and Naoya Ogawa. Part one is above; part two is after the jump. I'm not a connoisseur of puroresu by any means, but even I know that the Ogawa/Takayama sequence at the 3:12-4:57 mark is some garbage-ass shit. How much did your dignity cost, Josh?

("So listen, you got any clean urine I can borrow?" Photo courtesy of MMA Junkie.)

According to a story on Sherdog, Sengoku is planning to book American steroid aficionado Josh Barnett for their November 7th card, but not against Antonio Silva as was originally suggested; Silva is currently scheduled to fight at Sengoku 10 in September. Conveniently, World Victory Road Director Takahiro Kokuho is giving Barnett the benefit of the doubt regarding his latest positive test in California:

(The universal symbol for "I'm choking, and I'm a habitual steroid user.")

On Friday’s edition of SIRIUS Fight Club, I referred to Josh Barnett as “the most notorious steroid-user in MMA history.” At this point, after two high-profile, career-fucking steroid busts, that statement is pretty much indisputable. But let’s not forget that Barnett’s latest positive test — which sent a stake through the heart of Affliction’s MMA promotion — only wound up hurting Barnett, Affliction, and the handful of fighters on Affliction’s roster who didn’t immediately find new homes. For literally everybody else in the world of mixed martial arts, it was the best thing that could have possibly happened. Seriously. Think about it…

1) Affliction’s collapse saved “Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg” from being one of the most cursed events of all time. On July 7th, we were OMG’ing over the fact that Strikeforce’s 8/15 fight card was going to feature four title fights. By last Thursday, it had lost three of those title fights. Alistair Overeem was out with a hand injury. Joe Riggs was out with a mysterious drug reaction. (In the absence of any other information, we’ll just assume it was a heroin overdose. Get well soon, Joe.) And Josh Thomson was out with a bum toe. It would be a nightmare scenario for any promoter. But instead of a buckshot, ragged-ass event patched in with replacements from their own roster, Strikeforce was able to improve their card using Affliction refugees.