In
anticipation for Bloodsport 6, former UFC Heavyweight
Champion Josh Barnett came on The Wrestling Inc. Daily
today to talk about the big event that he will headline
against AEW star Jon Moxley. Towards the end of the
conversation, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick
Hausman brought up “free agent” Brock Lesnar
and asked if there’s any chance we ever see The
Beast in a Bloodsport ring.
“I
have no access to the kind of funds to make that happen,”
Barnett admitted. “I’ve also reached out
to Cain Velasquez through his management. We’re
just not capable of — money is too much of an
issue there, and that’s fair because nobody has
to do anything for us. Nobody owes us any real favors
that way.
“If
someone like Cain, well, I could make an offer to
Brock, but there’s nothing I could do that would
entice Brock Lesnar considering the kind of money
that he makes and has made so that’s totally
fine. But my appeal is always that there is no better
place for people that really want to just show exactly
who they are in that professional wrestling ring,
in the rawest environment possible with all the other
stuff stripped away and just let whatever is inside
their soul shine out.
“There’s
no place better for it than Bloodsport, and if that
interests you, then we got something for you, but
if you’re looking at it as a business transaction,
which I won’t fault you either, we’re working
on it but some things are more important than money.”
Lesnar
and Barnett’s paths have never crossed in UFC.
However, it has been a fight that Barnett has wanted,
and he spoke on whether he would be the one to fight
Lesnar if he came to Bloodsport.
“Well,
I’d probably send him to voicemail right off
the bat because I wouldn’t recognize the number,
and then I’d have to call him back, something
like that,” Barnett noted. “There’s
more than a few people that I could think of capable
of meeting Brock Lesnar in the Bloodsport ring. We
don’t lack for for capable and wanting fighters.”
Bloodsport
4 and 5 drew praise for the change in production quality.
Barnett spoke on the production process and how everything
came together.
“I’ve
worked in Hollywood before,” Barnett stated.
“I’ve done, I think, five feature films,
and I’ve even done some fight choreography and
things like that for a movie as well, but it’s
one thing to think about how you want something to
look and another thing to try and construct it.
“And
there’s always a variance between how you think
it’s going to go and how it really goes. Or,
how you really want it to look vs. how it really is
going to look. Sometimes that difference can be actually
a really pleasant surprise. Sometimes it’s like,
well, maybe I just need to adjust my expectations,
but either way it’s a process, and I’d say
the biggest thing is working with 5B Artists Media.
“They
have a lot of responsibility towards how the look
and feel of those last two shows were. They implemented
a lot of my vision there, and we sat down and cranked
it out. All the graphics work, all that kind of stuff,
that’s all 5B Artists Media as well. I guess
it shouldn’t be really that surprising what you
can do when you have the management company of Slipknot
helping you with with your product.”
Hausman
also noted that Bloodsport 4 and 5 were one of the
few shows that have benefited without an audience.
Barnett said he would like a live audience, but he
explained why Bloodsport is well positioned without
one.
“That
was a good reason why we did it because the overall
feeling was the way that we approach professional
wrestling and the way that we construct the vision
and the narrative around it,” Barnett explained,
“It’s always great to have a live audience,
but we really felt that we were maybe the show that
could do it without an audience best and suffer the
least, and I still feel like we could continue to
do it that way. Although, I don’t want to. I
do really like having a live audience.
“I
like being able to have people there to experience
what’s going on, to be in that moment, but a
good portion of it is just us letting the little hamster
in the wheel spin in our brains and think about how
we can best take advantage of a difficult situation.
And I think that we really pulled it with 4 and 5.
I would say between the two events those were some
of the best matches that we have ever had in Bloodsport.”
Josh
Barnett headlines Bloodsport 6 against AEW’s
Jon Moxley as part of GCW’s The Collective on
Thursday April 8th. For tickets and more info please
click HERE.
You can find the full audio and video from Josh’s
interview below:
