Josh Barnett returns to action today (Friday October 23rd) in Poland where he takes on former KSW heavyweight champion in Marcin Rozalski in KSW’s new bare knuckle boxing promotion Genesis. And as if bare knuckle boxing wasn’t already brutal enough, Genesis rules allow for elbows as well, which we’re sure is just going to add more blood to an already bloody circus. The event goes down at 8PM in Poland, or 2PM EST for us Americans.
So how did the 42 year old Barnett, former UFC champion, King of Pancrase openweight champion, and PRIDE contender, end up bare knuckle boxing in Europe? Unsurprisingly, Coronavirus played a part, as it has in most things this 2020.
“Availability,” Barnett told Submission Radio. “Because when we booked this thing, no one was doing events but the UFC. And so I was looking abroad to find a place I can go and get in the ring where they have opened up enough, and that brought me to my connections in Poland. It’s always just how it used to be, just how I started out, except with no head butts and no grappling in this one. But to hell with it, right? It will work out.”