Barnett: JMMA is far from dead
Josh Barnett: “It’s tough to bring MMA back into the status that it was, but it isn’t dead. Far from dead. And pro wrestling being great right now is fantastic for the biz.”
UFC heavyweight Josh Barnett recently spoke with Matthew Kaplowitz for BE, about his new role as the English-speaking commentator along with Mauro Ranallo on AXS TV’s “New Japan Pro Wrestling” show, which debuts January 16. No American understands the MMA scene with the intimacy that “The Warmaster” does, and he says that reports of the death of JMMA are greatly exaggerated.
Barnett of course is also a top pro wrestler, and with pro wrestling enjoying a boost in popularity in Japan, he thinks it can loft mixed martial arts with it.
“It’s tough, every country that you go to, culturally, is not going to respond to everything in the same way,” said Barnett. “What may barely register in one culture will completely set an industry back in another, and that’s just really the way of the world. But I think that Japanese MMA is making somewhat of a resurgence and I think that pro wrestling can be a big help to that, especially if some of those wrestlers are potential fighters as well, and that is actually very tough to come by. But it can be great for cross-over work. Also, the fight industry is always, whether they want to admit it or not, has always had some reliance on the professional wrestling industry, and the pro wrestling industry has been hurting and the fight industry has been hurting even more so.”
“There is a potential to bring back a big company but it’s not so easy to say well, we are just going to reach out to these guys and they’re just going to love it, not necessarily. It’s not so easy to say we are going to put in these foreign heavyweights and they are going to batter each other and we are going to love it. That is not so easy either. Part of that I think is because Japanese fans, or the ones that you are trying to reach to immediately, they’ve already seen pretty much everything that you can throw at them, so it’s tough to bring MMA back into the status that it was, but it isn’t dead. Far from dead. And pro wrestling being great right now is fantastic for the biz overall, it’s great not just for NJPW but for every pro wrestling company out there. I personally am an IGF guy, and I am working with them right now… I want to see all of those companies be successful because in the end, it’s just going to help everybody.”