Opening Salvo - The Catch Scouting Report on Josh Barnett

The UFC, Pride, Strikeforce, Pancrase, Affliction, Dream, Sengoku, K-1, New Japan Pro Wrestling, SuperBrawl, ADCC, Metamoris… if you run an MMA or submission grappling promotion and you haven’t employed Josh Barnett sometime in the last twenty one (21!) years, you’ve probably been doing it wrong. By all outside appearances, Snake Pit USA and Legit Pro Wrestling are doing the 2018 Catch Wrestling World Championship tournament right. They brought in the Warmaster, the highest profile proponent of catch as catch can in the world of professional combat. He is unquestionably the most famous participant in this tournament.

But can he win it? I watched the last five years of Barnett’s career – five MMA fights (Frank Mir, Travis Browne, Roy Nelson, Ben Rothwell, Andrei Arlovski) and two professional submission grappling matches ( Dean Lister, Ryron Gracie) – to try to answer that question.

Barnett is a massive human being, listed at 6’ 3” and 250lbs. Despite that size, his age (40), and his considerable ring time, he remains an incredibly fluid athlete. People that big just don’t move the way Josh Barnett does… unless they’re Josh Barnett.

His catch credentials are as solid as anyone active today. From the beginning of his career, he trained under the legendary Matt Hume, a veteran of the early days of Pancrase and inheritor of the Karl Gotch legacy. Later he moved his training to Erik Paulson’s CSW, which descends in part from Sayama… and again from Gotch. Barnett also worked closely with Wigan master Billy Robinson up until Robinson’s passing in 2014.

But catch as catch can is about performance, not lineage. Barnett has amassed an MMA record of 35-8. Relevant to this tournament, 21 of those victories, and only one of the defeats, are by submission. A list of Barnett’s victims includes Dan Severn, Semmy Schilt, Yuki Kondo, Alexander Emelianenko, Pawel Nastula, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Andrei Arlovski, and even the legendary Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira failed to submit Barnett over the course of two fights and 35 minutes of trying. And while Barnett’s submission record is a pedestrian 4-4, in 2014 he became the first person to submit Dean Lister in competition in over fifteen years.

Barnett’s grappling success is built around a stifling top game. The Lister match is a twenty minute commercial for Barnett’s Punishing Rides instructional, as the Warmaster displays classic catch top technique. He keeps his base wide, and keeps his feet “live” by driving off of his toes to generate additional pressure rather than resting on his knees as many jujitsu competitors do. (As an old coach of mine used to say, “live feet, live man; dead feet, dead man”.) When an opposing limb is in danger of improving his opponent’s position, he punishes it with pressure from his knee or shin or elbow. A man underneath Barnett is constantly carrying maximum weight, limiting movement and breathing. Barnett’s recent grappling opponents have found themselves consistently flattened against the mat and, while Metamoris rules don’t have a pinfall rule, keeping your back at an angle to the mat rather than flat against it is a basic rule of bottom work in jujitsu. Neither Dean Lister nor Ryron Gracie were able to do that consistently.

Catch is famous for leglocks, and Barnett has a good leglock game, but he primarily hunts for arms and necks. In his top ride, he regularly puts pressure on the head to push or pull it out of position, wearing down the neck, creating pain and exhaustion. These types of attacks won’t get a tap on their own, but they’re money in the bank, producing interest in the form of a slower, weaker opponent later in the match. That pain also inspires movement, and Barnett is quick to snatch up an arm that looks out of position and look for a double wristlock, often in combination with a head scissor control – again attacking the neck.

As good as Barnett’s game is, though, I have some concerns. In seven contests, Barnett only scored one takedown, and failed attempts led directly to two MMA losses. That top game won’t do him any good if he can’t actually, y’know, get on top. He gave up seven, five of them to Roy Nelson, and Nelson was able to hold Barnett flat on his back for extended periods twice in the first round of their fight. Go deeper into Barnett’s career, and this is an ongoing issue. Basically everyone you’d classify as a good wrestler has taken Barnett down whenever they really tried to. Dan Severn. Randy Couture. Even Nogueira, whose top game is not particularly good for a black belt of his overall caliber, has kept Barnett on his back. In MMA, this is a problem but a surmountable one. Barnett is tough enough to survive attacks and eventually work back to his feet or be saved by a referee’s stand up. In catch, where being flattened to the mat results in outright defeat, it’s a much bigger problem. And here's the dirty little secret about Josh Barnett's extensive career - he hasn't participated in a contest where he can win or lose by pinfall since high school. I'm a little older than Barnett and believe me, high school was a long time ago. None of the other guys in the field are Daniel Cormier, by any means, but you look at what Cormier did to Barnett and wonder how big a problem his takedown defense and bottom game are against a field of dedicated wrestlers.

Barnett’s overall game is still top notch. He should enjoy a size advantage in addition to his immense skill through his half of the bracket, and I expect that to be enough to get him to the finals. I am much less sanguine about his ability to actually win the final, and next time I’ll talk about why.

“Next time” may not be until the 5^th. I have some family obligations on the 4^th, and while I’m going to try to get the next post put together before then, I can’t make any promises. And the next guy deserves better than a rush job. Check back.

(For more on the 2018 Catch Wrestling World Tournament, including tournament scheduling and bracketing, see Snake Pit USA and Catch Wrestling U.)