Josh Barnett knows imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Barnett was this week’s guest on the Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast where he spoke about putting on his Bloodsport events in conjunction with GCW’s The Collective. Barnett spoke about William Regal and Jon Moxley attending the first event with his name on it, explaining they knew “guys from New York” wanted to watch the show and he said he would accommodate, especially for a long-time acquaintance like William Regal.
Renee says Jon (who was also on hand for this interview) was very stoked to show up with Regal and knew he had to lay low, but it was a great environment to be in. Barnett went on to talk about why Bloodsport was so unique and what his idea of wrestling is compared to the more “entertainment” aspect of it, noting that Bloodsport being ripped off by other companies just exemplifies that they have something successful.
Barnett: “I cleanly separate my ‘wrestling’ from my… I don’t know, ‘wrestling-type’ event. There’s so much fluffy, and to have something that is clearly not that, it’s dead serious and stripped down and raw—one, I also think that it stands out and I’ve found something that’s completely unique. What also makes it more unique is when people try to steal the gimmick, bite it and rip it off…”
Renee: “Where have we seen that?” [laughs]
Barnett: “A few places, although the major one isn’t really the first one either, not at all. I understand why they might want to do it, and it only helps us at the end of the day. But I’ve seen other organizations already try to rip the whole idea off and that’s fine, but it shows that people think that it’s ‘oh, I’ll just go out there and do MMA moves in a match’—no, that’s not it. ‘Oh, I’ll just take the ropes down.’ No, that’s not it. You can try and look like the packaging all you want, but you will not be the product, It is not that way, and even then, I think that we are on an evolution of what we are doing because it’s been so long since wrestlers were trained to wrestle this way anymore, for people to put together shows or anything like this. This is so of a past that has been neglected that it doesn’t exist. A lot of this is [from the] ground up and it’s something I don’t think a lot of people realize.”
Moxley added that it was the hot, trendy thing to copy Bloodsport and he’s seen some bad imitations, but this is the real deal. When asked by Renee if we’d finally see Moxley versus Barnett at Bloodsport after multiple attempts over the years, Barnett said that “there’s a plan for very early next year to make the reality come true at this point.”
Check out the full episode below:
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