If he can earn more money somewhere else, good for him. If he can get more visibility somewhere else, and fight a better standard of competition, go for it. More power to him. But Josh doesn't have the power anymore, because the UFC don't NEED him. Their HW division is filling out, and Barnett is on the downslide of his career and is coming off a bad loss. *Herr Dana. :good And what do you expect of Dana and Zuffa? Do you expect them to encourage and help competition to their brand? Maybe give a few of their big-name fighters to the smaller promotions, to help them get a leg up so they can take viewers and advertisers and media coverage away from the UFC? Funny, when PRIDE had all the best fighters and was getting 50,000 people into the Tokyo Dome while the UFC was bleeding money, getting denounced as "human cockfighting" in the Senate by John McCain and most of the way down the road to extinction, everything was great in the MMA world according to you. Honestly scurla, you have no sense of perspective at all. Why are you so bitter? Just sit back and enjoy the fights. They're easier to watch on TV now than they have ever been. :good :hat
Yeah that has the ring of plausibility about it. Yeah I would have liked to see him in there too. He's 35, he's still got a couple of good years left in him if he wanted. :hat
It isn't the end of the world because I'm not sure at this stage of his career whether he'd add depth to the top end or bottom end of the division.
This makes the Cormier/Barnett Grand Prix finals the final chapter of the Pride legacy as Barnett will now fade away into the background. That is unless he pops up on WSOF. That's his only chance to maintain US exposure.