Josh Barnett earns bizarre win over Andrei Arlovski in clash of former UFC champions
Josh Barnett waited more than a decade to finally get a chance to fight Andrei Arlovski, so he wasn’t going to let an eye poke get in the way of finishing the job.
Barnett submitted Arlovski in the third round of the main event of UFC Fight Night 93 in Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday, just moments after Arlovski’s thumb gouged Barnett’s eye and caused him to briefly cover up and retreat to the corner.
“I guess they didn’t see it,” Barnett said after securing a rear-naked choke on the mat. “It was accidental, but it was a little scary. It’s really swelling up now.”
After Arlovski’s thumb poked Barnett in the eye, Barnett completely turned his back and tried to retreat in the hopes the referee would give him time to recover. He hadn’t seen it, however, and Arlovski followed Barnett and began throwing big rights to try to finish the fight.
Barnett, who was a star in Japan’s Pride Fighting Championships when Arlovski was UFC champion in the mid 2000s, locked in a kimura to control Arlovski’s arm and slow down his attack.
He used the hold to pull Arlovski to the ground and worked quickly to lock in the choke and force Arlovski to tap out.
Arlovski and Barnett both made their UFC debuts at UFC 28 in November 2000. Barnett was first to take the UFC title, but he was stripped after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs and began competing in Japan. Arlovski rose the ranks and captured the UFC title in 2005.
While he was pushed as the so-called baddest man on the planet, Barnett and the rest of the stacked heavyweight division in Pride looked on with skepticism.
They felt they had the best heavyweight division in the world and wanted the chance to prove it.
Barnett and Arlovski were supposed to meet on an Affliction card in 2008, but the event was cancelled. They both eventually returned to the UFC and surged up the rankings over the last few years.
Both came into Saturday’s bout struggling, however. Barnett had lost two of his last three fights and Arlovski had dropped two straight.
It was as good a time as any to finally match them up and when they finally got a chance to fight, they didn’t waste any time.
During a hectic opening 30 seconds, both Barnett and Arlovski were staggered by right hands and nearly knocked out.
The action settled down and Barnett found success in the clinch and on the mat, while Arlovski continued to try to find a home for his right hand.
“I just went in there with a pitbull and had him try to ravage me,” Barnett said. “It was a ravaging, on both sides though. It was a good scrap. There were some lulls in action, I know, and I’m sorry for that. For whatever reason, my arms felt very heavy in there at times.”
But he was able to take the most of a bizarre situation to get the win. Once Barnett got to the mount, he landed several strikes that caused Arlovski to roll over on his belly. It was all the opening Barnett would need.
“Give me an opportunity, give me a limb, and I’ll take it home,” Barnett said. “I wanted that arm real bad, that double wristlock, but I bailed on it and went to the strike and in turn gave him that short choke.”
Two-time light heavyweight title challenger Alexander Gustafsson dominated Jan Blachowicz on the mat to win for the first time since March 2014.
Gustafsson, who had dropped two straight bouts including a split-decision loss to champion Daniel Cormier in October, was able to take Blachowicz down in all three rounds and punish him with elbows and short punches.
“It felt wonderful,” Gustafsson said. “It’s so good to be back in the octagon and to start winning again. I came in with an open mind, I knew that he wanted to finish me early and he came in hard. I didn’t connect my punches really in the beginning though. Jan Blachowicz is a very tough opponent. He has been in the game for a very, very long time and I knew I had to be on top form for this fight. And here I am now with the win.
“I’m glad I got to fight him because now everything is clear; I am the best guy in Europe.”
Gustafsson has lost to each of the top three fighters in the division: Cormier, Jon Jones and Anthony Johnson. He is now 9-1 against everyone else since signing with the UFC.
Blachowicz was able to give Gustafsson trouble in the standup, but couldn’t offer much resistance to his takedown attempts or mount much offense from his back.
““I feel sad because I lost the fight but in another way I feel great because I can fight against Alex Gustafsson who is one of the very best in the world,” Blachowicz said. “I didn’t expect him to take me down, that really surprised me. I thought that I would be the one that would try to take him down. That was my mistake in my training; I focused on stand up too much.
“But he was better, that is it.”
Reno native and McQueen alum Ryan Bader also bounced back from a disappointing losswith a second-round knockout of Ilir Latifi.
Bader made Latifi pay when he shot for a takedown attempt by drilling him with a knee to the head as he changed levels that knocked him out midway through the round.
“This was something new, you know, I haven’t had a kick or a knee knockout,” Bader said. “You kind of know when it hits a sweet spot and you see him go back and he’s done. It was just a great feeling. All the accumulation of hard work comes together at that one moment.”
The light heavyweight had won five consecutive fights to surge into title contention before he was knocked out by Johnson in January.
“I took a bad loss,” Bader said in the cage after the win on Saturday. “It was terrible. I just need to have fun again. I knew I needed to open up more and take more risks and look what happened.”
Nick Hein, the only German on the main card, won a unanimous decision over Tae Hyun Bang.
It was the lightweight’s third consecutive decision victory.
“I’m feeling good,” he said. “I’m just happy. You know there were a lot of expectations for me going into the fight. It makes me happy to walk out there in front of home fans. Of course, people always want you to win and to knock somebody out – to do some sort of flying kick or to see fireworks – but I have to get used to the fact that that’s not always going to happen.”
Ashlee Evans-Smith highlighted the preliminary card with a third-round knockout of Veronica Macedo in a women’s bantamweight bout.
Evans-Smith delivered a series of elbows on the ground to record the only stoppage victory of the preliminary card as the other six fights went the distance.
Welterweight Jessin Ayari picked up a controversial split-decision win over Jim Wallhead. Peter Sobotta, Taylor Lapilus, Jack Hermansson and Rustam Khabilov all earned unanimous decision victories.
Heavyweights Christian Colombo and Jarjis Danho fought to a majority draw.
Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj
