Josh Barnett: Emerging MMA fighter must dig into the sport – UFC News
Josh Barnett will be part of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Finale against Daniel Cormier on May 19, 2012, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. The fighter who started his career in 2003 with New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) thinks that MMA fighters today
are unaware of the sport’s history. According to Barnett, fighters need to know what has made this sport so popular.
In his recent interview, Josh said, “One thing that wrestlers got over MMA guys is they know their history. In MMA, there's a lot of kids just run out here and they don't know nothing. They couldn't tell you what Pancrase was, but you should know your past.
Just like with wrestling. At some point, there became that great divide, but they both require tremendous amounts of skill. They're both similar and yet different.”
He added that a professional wrestler should know both sides because if he wants to impress everyone out there, then he must know the ins and outs of the sport clearly. He further said that if a fighter does not know what he is doing then he will not be
able to produce good fights.
Josh compared professional wrestlers, mainly of WWE, with MMA fighters, saying that WWE wrestlers know their history well. According to Josh, Brock Lesnar, former UFC heavyweight champion who returned to WWE a month earlier, knows what WWE and MMA is all
about. Josh stated that even though Brock is in the WWE right now, he still is in that MMA fighting mindset because the history of the game is deeply embedded in his head.
Josh Barnett is one of the most well-versed MMA fighters today. He is not an emerging star but a fighter who already has produced some of the best fights in the industry. He knows what he is up to and what he wants from the sport. Therefore, he thinks that
to reach the level on which he stands, new fighters should dig deep into the history of the sport and know that it is more than just mere fighting and breaking bones in a cage.
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