Josh Barnett Bio - Biography

Name Josh Barnett
Height 6 ft 3 in
Naionality American
Date of Birth 10-November-1977
Place of Birth Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Famous for Wrestler
Josh Barnett is an American mixed martial artist and professional wrestler who currently fights in the heavyweight division of Strikeforce. Barnett has been an accomplished fighter in mixed martial arts, winning the UFC Heavyweight Championship and King of Pancrase Openweight Championship. He was a finalist in the Pride 2006 Openweight Grand Prix and the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Championship. As of December 2012, Barnett is ranked the #9 heavyweight fighter in the world by Sherdog.

After having his UFC HW title stripped due to testing positive for 3 banned substances, Josh Barnett began his overseas career as a professional wrestler in the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) organization, where he wrestled numerous matches in 2003 and 2004. In his first match, he wrestled champion Yuji Nagata for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Although unsuccessful in that match, Barnett formed a tag team with Perry Saturn and was undefeated in the following NJPW tour, Fighting Spirit 2003. Barnett wrestled over 50 matches in total for the NJPW promotion. Since then, Barnett has been wrestling for Antonio Inoki's Inoki Genome Federation wrestling promotion. He debuted with the company in 2007 with a victory over Tadao Yasuda. He racked up victories against Don Frye and Montanha Silva before suffering his first loss against Naoya Ogawa. The same man he beat earlier in the night. Since the loss, he has been on a winning streak beating The Predator, Hitokui Yoshiki, Tank Abbott, Jon Andersen, Fonseca, Atsushi Sawada, Bob Sapp, Ultimate Mask, Tim Sylvia, Montanha Silva, Bobby Lashley and Hideki Suzuki. On 13 September 2010 it was announced that Josh Barnett had signed a multi-fight deal with Strikeforce.

Barnett faced Brett Rogers on June 18, 2011 at Strikeforce: Dallas in the opening round of a Strikeforce heavyweight tournament. Barnett submitted Rogers with an arm triangle in the second round of the bout. Barnett defeated Sergei Kharitonov in the semi-final of the tournament headlining Strikeforce: World Heavyweight Grand Prix – Barnett vs. Kharitonov on September 10, 2011 at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He faced fellow finalist Daniel Cormier on May 19, 2012 at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier to determine the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Champion. Dana White announced if Barnett were to defeat Cormier, he would be allowed back into the UFC, "If he wins the fight, I can't see why he wouldn't come [to the UFC]." Barnett lost the bout via unanimous decision. (50-45, 50-45, 49-46), losing for the first time in over 5 years. He has one bout left on his Strikeforce contract.