The UFC Fight Night event will head back to Japan in September, and the show will be headlined by a heavyweight matchup between Roy Nelson and Josh Barnett. The UFC also announced that Barnett and Nelson would appear as coaches on a new reality series called “Road to the UFC: Japan”. The format of the show is expected to be similar to the format of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, with participants from the event likely filling out the September card.
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The return of Josh Barnett could be big news. Barnett took all of 2014 off, last appearing in a stoppage loss to Travis Browne in December of 2013. He is 2-2 in his last four fights, losing to Daniel Cormier and getting a fast win over Frank Mir and Nandor Guelmino. At 37 years old, he made public competitve appearances at the all-grappling Metamoris event, where he won two fights by submission. That format lends itself to draws, so finishing two fights against highly skilled competition perhaps indicates that Barnett is gathering himself for one more run at the top. It has been almost 15 years since he held the UFC heavyweight title, and if he wants to win that belt again, he must start his run now with a win over Nelson.
Nelson is hanging on for dear life with the UFC. Though popular and recognizable, he is 1-4 in his last five fights and he needs to win to maintain any relevance. He is a year older than Barnett at 38 and he really seems to have slowed down. Now, his gimmick of being fat and out of shape helped him make a name for himself, but he has been beaten to the punch consistently over the course of his last five fights. Granted it was against the hard hitting Mark Hunt, but in September of 2014 he was stopped by punches for the first time in his career, another bad sign.
Nelson will be entertaining on television, and at his core he is a very talented fighter who may make a good coach. But if he runs into a fully focused Barnett who is preparing to make his last run at the top, Nelson is going to run into trouble.
