Barnett and the Wrong Kind of Hype

It takes real tunnel vision to fail three drug tests in your career and still spit fire, but Josh Barnett -- trained in the ways of professional wrestling -- is no quitter.

Having signed with Strikeforce last week, the former UFC heavyweight champion told MMAWeekly.com that he looks forward to a broadcast slot on CBS because “when I dislocate and tear somebody’s head completely off their shoulders and spew blood all over the ring, and then drink it, I want the world to see it. I’d love to fight on CBS [and] punch somebody so hard that their eyeballs pop out of their head.”

Despite painting a scene worth of Frank Frazetta, Barnett’s reality hasn’t been so colorful: he had two nothing fights in 2010 and one protracted battle with Gilbert Yvel in 2009 in which he managed to achieve mount and still not finish off one of the sport’s least proficient ground fighters. And there was the infamous third pop for banned substances, which collapsed a fight with Fedor Emelianenko last summer.

I’m past the point of considering MMA an endangered animal that needs to be bottle-fed: it’s a mainstream sport that’s not going anywhere. But before Barnett lapses into another faux-psychotic rant, he might pause to consider that there are still several places in the world -- New York and several countries among them -- that relish those words as a way to keep his activity out of their borders. The sport has grown up, but it doesn’t matter much if its athletes haven’t.