#13 | Josh Barnett | MMA, Grappling Life, and Heavy Metal Devotion | "No One Goes To War Over Facts and Figures, They Go To War Over a Myth"

In an episode brimming with intellectual muscle, we welcome former UFC heavyweight champion and multifaceted warrior Josh Barnett to the Conspiracy and Chill Syndicate. Josh discusses the strategies behind organizing his next pro wrestling event and shares a slice of his life as a coach and athlete.

Wrestling with both the physical and philosophical, Josh challenges the notion that history marches in a straight line, pondering instead the cyclical patterns of human experience. From the Norse sagas to the streets of contemporary Iran, our conversation with "The Warmaster"  explores the ebb and flow of cultural values and governance. Our narrative then turns towards the paranormal and the profound, as we connect Josh's personal altar practices to his love for the visceral power of death metal, exemplifying the unexpected ways life's themes intertwine.

Concluding our eclectic odyssey, we announce an ambitious documentary project set to offer an unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes of martial arts training and competition. For those whose ears are tuned to the rhythm of the ring and the melody of life, Josh Barnett's versatile taste in music, from the beats of Depeche Mode to the twang of Marty Robbins, promises an auditory feast. Join us for this unguarded chronicle where culture, history, and the spirit of the fight converge, and where every punch and every chord strikes a note in the symphony of human endeavor.

Josh Barnett website - Here
Josh Barnett's Bloodsport
on - IG
on - X

Transcript

Mike Straus: 0:15

Well, this is another session. This time we have a fucking beast in the mixed martial arts and grappling world Josh Barnett, the fucking war master. Before we get into all that shit, I am Mike Strauss, saw a book, my former MMA journalist and my co-host is Tom the head, Hunter Higgins, who is a world champion catch wrestler. So, yeah, this one's going to be extra special for you with Josh Barnett, dude. Yeah, we appreciate all you guys. Continue following all the social medias X, Instagram, Patreon, YouTube, all that good stuff. Shoot us an email, conspiracyandchilliocom, what else dude, nothing.

Tom Higgins: 1:01

Just waiting to hear from our beloved fans. I'm still waiting to get some random DMs talking some crazy shit. Let's go.

Mike Straus: 1:08

Yes, community, community. It's all about the community. Oh, you know what? You know what, dude? What's that? We are two truth seekers trying to expose the keepers. And how do we do that, tom?

Tom Higgins: 1:20

With chill vibes and deep dives.

Mike Straus: 1:23

Deep dives and chill vibes. You said chill. I think you said chill dives and deep vibes.

Tom Higgins: 1:29

Oh shit, I think we don't have a patent.

Mike Straus: 1:32

Yet that's kind of cool too, though Could work either way really, if you think about it. You know Chill dives yeah, it could be chill dives and deep vibes.

Tom Higgins: 1:43

Like Mike said, fucking personal one for me. This is a guy of pretty much idolized at a time in my life and taking a lot of influence from. He was actually at the same tournament that I became a world champion at the snake pit tournament in England for catch wrestling. He was the coach for one of my opponents and he had a match as the headliner, as well, so I didn't get to talk to him.

Tom Higgins: 2:07

I definitely wanted to, but it just wasn't the right time. I was focused on a mission and you know he was pretty busy as well. So glad to get him on here to finally chat. This is going to be a brutal one.

Mike Straus: 2:18

What else is going on in the world, dude? Anything, anything on your mind, bothering you eating at you.

Tom Higgins: 2:24

I mean I walk around a little bit grumpy a lot of the times when you get like this world of insane information get to you. But I would say I've been doing a good job keeping it off lately and the only thing that's been pissing me off a little is trying to put together the next wrestling wars and the whole matchmaking headache that comes with that. That's never fun, but it's worked out pretty well each time. So I'm trying to keep it low stress. How about you?

Mike Straus: 2:56

Oh, lots of shit. You know, just the same old bullshit at work. It's just this weird thing where it's like the harder you work there, the worse you get treated, and it's just I don't know, dude, I don't, I don't understand the world, I don't understand how things work, which is why and me being a felon, I really don't have many options, you know like, and I'm always looking, you know, only just looking for different opportunities and or better opportunities, I should say, and four times in the last year and a half I've been offered really good jobs, like they got numb, everything's cool, and then they withdraw the offer because my background checks. So it's like we live in Illinois and that is not one of the felon friendliest states in the union. So there's that why you know what it is Fucking. Not much I can do about it. You know I'll be a felon for the rest of my life. So which is fucked up, dude, don't even get me started on that.

Mike Straus: 3:56

It's like felons are the only group of people that it's 100% legal to discriminate against, and it's like how would you like to be judged by the worst decision you ever made for the rest of your life? That's what I am. Yeah, felons are not treated very, very good, and you know I get it, do not. I don't believe that, like all felons should just be treated a certain way. What I advocate for is every case should be looked at uniquely. You shouldn't just blank it the whole group of them. You know what I mean. Fuck it. What could you do? That's why, like you said, that's why we need to get this motherfucker going.

Tom Higgins: 4:35

It's trending in the right direction, so indeed, but yeah, other than that, life's pretty good. No complaints, no real complaints.

Mike Straus: 4:45

Yeah, you know, that's the thing Whenever I find myself bitching in moan, and I always think there's people that woke up today worrying about clean water. So yeah, there's that.

Tom Higgins: 4:58

Yeah, man, and where your attention goes is what tends to be at the forefront of your life. So if you want to fucking look at all the negative, then you're going to have a lot of negative experiences. So it all starts in the mind Fuck it, josh Barnett. The man has a career, credentials and a resume that speaks for itself, but if you're not the biggest mixed martial arts fan, you'll become very acquainted with him in this episode.

Mike Straus: 5:28

Yes, and you know what, though? He is probably, if not the most, definitely one of the top two or three most well spoken and articulate guys in all of combat sports. Of course, it goes without saying he's highly intelligent, but not everybody that's intelligent is gifted with words, and he not only is he a fucking ass kicker, he's fucking smart, he's good with words. I mean, yeah, he's a fucking. He's really a master of all trades, dude the war master of all trades, I guess.

Tom Higgins: 6:06

A real Renaissance man, and we've had some, some cool fighters on. Not all of them have truly bit on, you know, engaging in the weird out there fucking woo woo discussions, but I feel like this one's not going to disappoint.

Mike Straus: 6:21

He's definitely the biggest, without a doubt.

Tom Higgins: 6:24

Without a doubt, Physically that too, he's a huge guy. I saw him. I saw him in person. I was just imagining like what if I had to wrestle this dude? Like what if I had his fucking weight on top of me? Like that would be miserable. His fucking legs are gigantic, dude. Like you try to double leg him or single leg him and get crushed by his weight, it wouldn't be fun.

Mike Straus: 6:42

The average person dude I don't think has a fucking clue of what it really is like to to roll with someone. Because you can have, like, okay, I'm about 220 pounds, I can have a guy that is really good. Let's say, let's say he's a purple belt Okay, I get that purple. Even a fucking blue belt, for that matter, could be on me and he could be 160 pounds and if he knows what he's doing, he can make that 160 feel like 300. So I can't even imagine having Josh burning on top of me. Would feel like a fucking Volkswagen.

Tom Higgins: 7:20

No, dude. Yeah, for real, I'm like the people who have never rolled or I don't know. You hear it when you're out, if you're watching fights at a bar. You got your friends who don't really know much about it. My favorite things always been no, I'll just push them off me or just stand up like that whole fucking meme.

Tom Higgins: 7:37

That shit is hilarious and yeah, no, you know exhausting and how demoralizing it is when you're just getting fucked up and there's nothing you could do. There's no more helpless feeling. If you're getting punched in the face and shit like that, it hurts. It's very apparent that you're getting beat up and taking damage, but it's completely different when you think you can handle yourself and you can't.

Mike Straus: 8:01

I think that particularly young kids that like young male adolescents that have maybe an anger problem or a temper or that like to start fights, and their bullies, I think that their punishment, if they can do trouble, I think what the corrective action should be is for them to have to take like wrestling or jujitsu, because that there's nothing that'll humble you quicker. Oh, you think you're tough, oh okay, okay you think you're tough, go fuck a roll with that guy for five minutes. You'll tap out fucking two dozen times and that's enough to humble anybody. I really think that if we, if more kids that maybe were troubled or headed in that direction, if that was like the intervention, I think that would help out a lot, don't you?

Tom Higgins: 8:47

Absolutely dude. That would be huge because I know I was a little asshole when I was a kid and getting fucking wrecked and wrestling Definitely, you know it humbled. It humbled me for sure, and especially because I was a little bit bigger as a kid, like a little chunkier, so I was like I'm the heavier weight classes and around like seventh, eighth grade there were some kids. They were already like fucking fully through puberty, so they're like young men already, like just jacked with like facial hair and shit. And I'm still like a pudgy teenager and just I had no chance in some of those matches, just get fucking wrecked and demoralized and I had to deal with it. I had to go through with it thinking I'm some, you know, tough guy, little skateboard, metalhead, punk. But meanwhile I was getting handled by a fucking dude who's a 13 year old man already.

Tom Higgins: 9:35

A 13 year old man To the real, though I'm not exaggerating that some of these guys. You'd look back and I'd be like this guy's got. He has to have like two kids in the stand or so. Most of us barely had our little fucking rat stash and these guys are fully shaving and just like jacked eighth graders and fuck. Yeah, I had no hope.

Mike Straus: 9:55

Just got that Josh Barnett DNA Fucking A. Well here's the conversation we had with Josh Barnett.

Tom Higgins: 10:02

An episode I'm very excited about. We've got the legend himself, Josh the war master Barnett, a UFC heavyweight champion, MMA legend, pro wrestler, catch wrestling legends Like he's synonymous with catch wrestling, which is something that I am myself involved with, and anytime I bring it up, he's the first name that comes to mind for anybody. We were at the snake pit tournament, Josh, and I definitely wanted to get a chance to chat with you, but I was on a mission you were coaching. I know you headlined the event, so it just didn't seem like an appropriate time. So thanks for coming on and chatting. Stoke for the opportunity, my pleasure.

Josh Barnett: 10:38

Hell, I didn't even get to buy my opponent a beer, like I had insisted on, but yeah, because afterwards it was just swamped. Who knew, losing a match can make you so popular.

Tom Higgins: 10:49

Well, it was in style. That was a legendary battle between you two and it was awesome to have you on the. It was okay.

Josh Barnett: 10:55

I thought I mean I was glad to be there. I was more there To bring the team and I picked that. I went with that match because it was a challenge, because he's a type of athlete that I've I always have trouble with and that's the like tight defensive doesn't open up guy. If he's just strong enough to like not give you anything, then it just. I've always had trouble with those dudes so I was like all right, well, we'll see how it goes and lesson learned I just needed to create way more movement on bottom because he was never going to, he was never going to attack me for anything, so I needed to get him moving and hustling and create some gaps. I do it differently if I could do it again.

Tom Higgins: 11:34

Well, I'm sure the snake pit would love to run again as well and I think everyone there was entertained by it. Like you know, the biggest fans of grappling are other grapplers who can appreciate the intricacies and the dragged out battles. And I think the whole reason like you're very familiar with it, obviously being a catch wrestler and you were around all the legends like you're a legend in your own right but you were trained by Carl Gotch, Billy Robinson, all the true old pioneers and like the reason that wrestling became a fixed thing as far as pro wrestling is because the general crowd wouldn't appreciate a match like that, Like they don't know what they're seeing, so kind of like spice it up for the audience.

Josh Barnett: 12:13

That's true. Yeah, I mean, if you got to, you got to work to, to who you're paying customers are to a degree. But also, at the same time, you have to keep in mind that a lot, of, a lot of times the customers, the marks, they really don't know exactly what they want because they're not the ones out there wrestling, they're not the ones that actually create the thing. So in some sense you kind of have to lead them into where you know or where you figure they're actually going to be most satiated by what you give them, even if they didn't know that that was the case themselves.

Tom Higgins: 12:48

Yeah, well put, and I know you've run quite a few events like you ran the US Open for catch wrestling and I was hoping to go to that. Unfortunately, I got hurt and I couldn't attend. You've thrown some pro wrestling shows too, right?

Josh Barnett: 13:02

Yeah, josh Barnett's Bloodsport is on to its 10th show.

Josh Barnett: 13:07

The next one will be the during WrestleMania week, which is a it's a tradition for us, and that'll be April 4th in Philadelphia and, like I said, 10th version of this, this event, and with the ACWA.

Josh Barnett: 13:22

I don't know exactly how many shows we've done up top my head. We did a lot of them from a test tournament perspective and they were to see how the rules play out and to try and think about how to get ahead of people gaming the system and where it is most likely to be gained and where the incentives could be and how they could be manipulated. So if you want a consistent, high caliber sport, you got to figure these things out ahead of time, because the human that gets on that mat or gets into any arena wants to win and there's always going to be those guys that are going to read the rule book to the nth degree and go well, technically, they didn't say I couldn't do this. Or if I move the area of the match into this particular corridor, it's basically min maxing. And then you start seeing ah well, once one person figures that out, then everybody starts doing it and then every match starts to look the same, which you know that would suck.

Tom Higgins: 14:26

Right, and I think that that's kind of why submission grappling or no, gejitsu has kind of gotten a little bit stale over time and there's there's no consistency with the rules and when there is a rule set, like you said, there's always someone trying to find maybe not the most exciting or entertaining tactic available to get the win, whether it's stalling out for overtime or advantage points or the dreaded butt scooting and what would you say is your personal favorite to either watch or compete under.

Josh Barnett: 14:58

I personally like competing under catch most of all, but other than that maybe maybe a submission only rule set that had good referees that called stalling, because I mean that's like a huge issue with all grappling a lot of stalling.

Tom Higgins: 15:14

The match that comes to mind for me is the you and Dean Lister match. I've probably watched that over a dozen times and tried to take all the influence I could and see all the intricacies in that and that matches you know legendary. You wore them out that whole time. The whole strategy of wearing shoes. That's something that I definitely took influence from and I like to roll in wrestling shoes and you'll see some of the guard guys. You know they'll complain and take those things off. It's unfair. You're creating too much pressure with it.

Josh Barnett: 15:42

Unfair. Unfair, I love it, but see, the argument was or I should say the. The consensus was I was an idiot, I was stupid, what a dumb idea. I'm going to get leg locked into oblivion. What a moron wearing shoes against Dean Lister. And even the announcer, the announcing crew, the commentary crew, was saying oh, that was such a, that was a bad idea. I would never do that. Well, I see, thinking, and then I win the match. And then it was a deluge of oh. Well, you know why was he allowed to wear shoes? That should be illegal. Blah, blah, blah, blah. He's got too much grip. He has this, this, that and the other and it's like well, which is it?

Josh Barnett: 16:20

I'm an idiot, I'm a total stone moron or I'm like some sort of technologically advanced you know manipulator of the rules and tantamount to cheating, because I wore shoes. And it's just like. You know what. All it says is that the both sides, both statements, come from a place of utter ignorance and myopic understanding of what grappling is, and just idiocy. It's all it can be distilled to. You know, it's like you pitch your pants for one thing and then you shit your pants for another. Either way, you still got soiled pants. So that's all I came down to. And you know, my comment to the commentary crew prior to the event and to Halleck was like you're gonna wear shoes against Dean Lister and I said, yeah, if he can get to my legs I'll be impressed, but that let alone if he thinks he can keep them or even still win in a leg lock battle there. Then you know, it's not the shoes that's the problem.

Tom Higgins: 17:27

I mean, you always been a well-rounded grappler when it comes to catch. Obviously, there's a lot of leg locking going on and catch wrestling and MMA. You've submitted some of the best fighters to ever do it, and I know Mike had a couple of questions, being the MMA journalist about your former MMA career Former. Sorry, we're gonna get him back into that world though, don't worry, but Nope.

Josh Barnett: 17:51

I don't know. It seems like a pretty terrible world.

Mike Straus: 17:53

It's a dirty world. It's a dirty world.

Josh Barnett: 17:57

It's a real low bar, so maybe you are the guy that can succeed on your second time around.

Tom Higgins: 18:02

Let me say that I run a bit of my own wrestling league at the moment, where we do different styles of wrestling, catch being one of them collar and elbow just takedown matches and I'm getting Mike involved in the media side of it. So that's why I keep emphasizing that.

Mike Straus: 18:17

Hey, josh, I'm a huge pro wrestling fan as well as mixed martial arts journalist, so I had a couple of questions on that side. I recently you had about an AEW against Claudio Castagnoli Great match. I wanted to know what's a two part question. I wanted to know if you were gonna be doing any more professional wrestling in AEW, roh, anything along those lines. And then the second part would be I know you trained Shayna Baszler, I believe, to become a pro wrestler, and then I believe you work with Moxley too. Is there any other guys that you've been, or guys or girls that you've been working with?

Josh Barnett: 18:51

I don't have any plans to do anymore with AEW at the moment. I suppose that could change, but I've got such a full deck of projects and things moving at the moment. In fact, when will this podcast air?

Mike Straus: 19:05

I mean depending. We don't really have a set schedule, but probably about a week from now.

Josh Barnett: 19:10

Because on February 14th, the 13th, over here I'll be making a pretty huge announcement from Japan, Mm nice.

Mike Straus: 19:19

Mm, regarding the pro wrestling world, I take it. Regarding pro wrestling yes, Okay, I won't press anymore. That's awesome.

Josh Barnett: 19:27

In terms or in regards to the second question, athletes wrestlers I've worked with in professional wrestling. I've trained Harry Smith since he created, before he was old enough to drink. He's been a long, long time student of mine. Now he's back in MLW. He had just done a short tour with all Japan, I think. Alex Coglin, who's in New Japan pro wrestling right now as part of the War Dogs I've worked with him quite a bit. Roy Sizak's trained semi-consistently out here and he also comes in sometimes to California.

Josh Barnett: 20:04

Mixed martial arts and spars and grapples and everything In fact he took second in the light heavyweight division in a catch wrestling tournament we threw down here, losing to Jordan. Oh God, why am I forgetting his last name? Big kid, great hips. He used to fight in the UFC at 185. The Beverly Hills Ninja, tough kid, jordan Wright. But Jordan Wright, roy Sizak gets out there and scraps it up. Trains at Haya Stand trains with me. John Morrison I've worked with for quite a while.

Josh Barnett: 20:39

I've trained him in boxing, which was pretty fun experiment, but he's still at it. He's still boxing, still training, even though he's with the AEW and ROH at the moment. I used to work quite a bit with Nicole Savoy when she was still working, but I think she's really called it good. Marina Shafir for MMA and pro wrestling. Andy Williams in AEW I was real heavy in working with him and getting him to really follow through with becoming a pro wrestler, like really putting some time into it and seeing where it goes. Then there's guys like Eric Hammer I've worked with a lot with Bobby Lashley, davey Richards it's a pretty long list.

Josh Barnett: 21:25

Chris Dickinson was someone that was training directly under me for some years and really had a killer run towards the end of his tenure there and was doing his best work, I believe, and I've worked with people like Jonah and Walter and Alexander Wolfe. I can't forget Tim Thatcher, jeff Cobb and JR Kratos. I spent actually quite a bit of time with Kratos and Thatcher and Cobb when I could or when he could get around, but Thatcher and Kratos have even been a part of one of my fight camps before. So there's those guys and, I guess, over in Japan. It's a laundry list of guys I've worked with, like Shinsuke Nakamura, hiroshi Tanahashi, jyushin Liger Although with Liger I was learning pro wrestling for him while I was teaching him catch and then Hideki Suzuki. I've been working with up for a very long time since, before he even made his debut.

Mike Straus: 22:22

God damn, that is an amazing list of people. I can't even ask you if you have a favorite. That'd be a shitty move on my part. So I'm gonna transition into. I'm gonna transition.

Josh Barnett: 22:34

I almost forgot Lindsay Snow trained her in pro wrestling as well, and catch, and I'm one of the few people that work with her. And then I've worked with Thunder Rosa. Yeah, it just keeps going and going.

Mike Straus: 22:48

And that's something that you plan to continue to do is were anybody that's willing to put the work and you're willing to work with them.

Josh Barnett: 22:55

Essentially, when it comes to someone like Shayna, it's been. I've been her manager since probably since early in her career, and continue to manage her in pro wrestling. So it was a full commitment on both ends there to get her where she wanted and where she could get, leading right all the way into the WWE, which is fantastic and a lot quicker timeline than we had ever anticipated. But part of the responsibility I feel deep within me is to continue to work with people, train folks and keep this stuff alive the pro wrestling and the catch wrestling side and the MMA stuff and everything and to pass it along and put it in other people's hands who are worthy to be under not just my tutelage per se, but to bear the knowledge that I've been acquiring from all these incredible coaches and athletes for a whole lifetime at this point, even if my lifetime is only 46 years old at this point.

Tom Higgins: 24:02

With some of the legendary guys you trained under that were kind of like yourself, like legitimate grapplers and professional wrestlers like Billy and Karl and stuff. And was the training in Japan? Was it a lot of like actual wrestling and like sparring rolling? Because like their style looked a lot more like regular grappling Like I haven't watched a lot of pro wrestling as of late in my life but I grew up obsessed with it Like many guys did and I could always appreciate looking back like when the matches or some of the athletes style you know more so resembles real grappling than just a more acrobatic or high flying or theatrics style. So I guess what I'm asking is was the training with those guys a lot more based in real wrestling?

Josh Barnett: 24:49

Well, guys that came through the Japanese dojo systems yes, especially not including the UWF, which was very fight I mean almost entirely fight-oriented but the New Japan dojo, it's training structure starts with just nothing but amateur wrestling and catch stuff. That's just the fundamentals that they put into these guys. And for me, I was already 24, ufc world champion and all this kind of stuff. So it was different. The way my approach towards training over there was a lot of refinement, there was plenty of sparring. Don't get me wrong, but I was already essentially a fully formed professional top of the food chain athlete. But I was constantly learning things from everybody and I always say that being in the professional wrestling ring made me a better MMA fighter as well, because it's like an opportunity to just get a shit ton of reps competing in a sense of time, general wrestling in front of thousands of people, television, all of that. You know it really helps with getting you to a place where you're just very aware and very present in the ring.

Tom Higgins: 26:08

I'm sure it would help the competition nerves and anxiety when it's not, you know, full intensity and you're a little more focused and dialed in on every single decision where it's, you know, rehearsed in a way, and you're focused on executing everything perfectly for the crowd. That's a different level of concentration, I guess.

Josh Barnett: 26:27

Yeah, but it helps you work through all the steps of preparation to go out there and perform, and that's a really key and important ingredient. When we got guys especially as they're coming up, if they haven't fought in a bit, then we always want to put them into grappling competitions because it's still it's going out there and competing where it counts that the preparation towards such a moment is important. As an athlete in general, even if it's preparation for a grappling match or a table tennis tournament, it doesn't matter, like if you're going out there to win, like you mean it, there's a certain way you have to approach it.

Tom Higgins: 27:11

Absolutely, and you've fought in pretty much all the premier organizations, fought all over the place. Are there any that stick out amongst your body of work, as far as like how you felt when you were going in, maybe your mentality or how you felt just going in preparing for it Any that stick out specifically when it comes to the mentality of competing or performing?

Josh Barnett: 27:35

Yeah, like my bare knuckle boxy match I had in Poland. I think I couldn't have been in a better place mentally for that fight. It really made me feel alive again. And then, you know, winning the King of Anchorage title from Yuki Kondo was such a monumental thing for me that I just never. It just started off on me just throwing something out there and it come into fruition and then being able to say that you know something that was Godch had a hand in helping create, not to mention where my original instructor from MMA, matt Hume. He trained over there, he fought in the original King of Anchorage tournament and he came up short against Minoru Suzuki and then I came back around 10 years later and win the title. So that was a. You know, that felt like a really pivotal and it felt a bit more monumental even than winning the UFC title at the time. It was an interesting. It was a very, very, very beautiful moment.

Tom Higgins: 28:36

Definitely. Definitely sounds like a defining moment.

Mike Straus: 28:40

Kind of piggybacking, I guess, off of what Tom was just saying. Josh, you have fought and competed in every major mixed martial arts promotion UFC, pride, strike force, affliction I'm not sure if you know you have a winning record in every one of those promotions. I don't know if anybody besides you could say that without lying. So that's pretty cool. I wanted to know what run do you look back at with the most fond memories?

Josh Barnett: 29:13

Probably my run in pride. That was, I think, the most fun I had fighting, and you know it was without its difficulties. But overall I would say that would be. That would be the one for me. The second run in the UFC started strong, but I don't know things. One, I was getting old, long in the tooth to the way things were run. It's not that the UFC is a bad place and I'm not here to complain about them. It just everything was so much bigger and greater than it used to be when I was in there originally and you know the money, the fame, the, every, the opportunities. I mean it really turned a corner. But it just there was just something about it that just felt like a machine and kind of sucked some of the fun out of it. And if anything, I needed to take my time a bit more than trying to be as as like just roll into everything as quickly as possible whenever possible, as like I used to. But that was still a good time too.

Mike Straus: 30:14

I thought you were going to say pride. That's. That's what I thought you were going to say. Yeah, I think I think a lot of people look back at that run with with fond memories too. Tom, let's get weird brother.

Tom Higgins: 30:26

So the nature of this show gets into the the weirder and conspiratorial things. What would people maybe be surprised to find out? Josh Barnett believes Like is there any conspiracy, or weird or paranormal hills you would die on?

Josh Barnett: 30:45

I don't know.

Josh Barnett: 30:45

You know, I mean, if people listen to me, they know that I go into all kinds of at times esoteric or oft unread or unheard of or somewhat forgotten places. I, it's just who I am, I don't got weird. Well, a lot of the things I think people think are very strange until I sit down with them and explain them in a much more detailed and exemplary manner, but I don't know if you could call it that. I don't consider this is not a conspiracy by any means, but people might consider this strange. But I don't believe in the progressive concept of linear history at all. I think that's fake, it's bullshit and it doesn't line up.

Josh Barnett: 31:31

I don't think history is any sense of progress whatsoever Just because you've gotten more widgets and gadgets and you've been able to use technology to abate or divert nature in terms of how it conflicts or affects your life in more and greater ways because of technological advances doesn't make that progress, because people are not not fungible widgets, nor are they things which exist only in rational and mechanical constructed universes or ways of being. Human beings, for one, in my opinion, are not rational. They don't really do a lot of things via rationality and ultimately, when the chips are down, no one goes to war over facts and figures. They go to war over a myth. Humans are myth making and myth obeying creatures and I believe that history shows this. I think that it's obvious to anybody. If you really sit down and pay attention and get out of your own kind of postmodern, rationalist, modernistic, atomized, mechanical way of thinking about things, and then as you look back at history, you'll see that the concept of people seeing history as being cyclical is far older than any concept of linear, progressive history whatsoever. So you know, I explained to somebody the other night over dinner that the people think that the way that they live in their place and time, let's just say, in the West, is somehow greater than somebody who lives in a lesser technologically advanced or less Western let's say even English liberal tradition or let's say something modern modeled after an English liberal tradition concept of culture and state. They look at that and they're like, oh, we're so much better than all those other people.

Josh Barnett: 33:45

But it's just like when it came down to looking at things like Iran, which was such a hot news item for a moment, I mean it is again, I guess, but I mean in terms of there was the thing about the cultural police and the women that were, or women women who was accosted and beaten to death for disobeying Sharia law in Iran. But the thing that everybody got up in an uproar about is, yeah, to us it seems crazy, why would you do that? But then we overlay that on top of Iranians at the moment and how they live their lives and we, I think, very callously and arrogantly think that we understand everything about the environment and the culture of such a place, and yet we don't bother to say understand things like it was the women who ratted and attacked this girl to begin with and called the cops on her. It wasn't men, it was women. It was women that enforced this to the infigy. You can find tons of videos of Iranian women accosting, yelling at, berating other Iranian women for dressing, as we would say, in a more Western way. And I don't think it's necessarily that it's Western, it's just that the way they've structured their society they see that is unacceptable. But if that's how they want to live in their society, then why am I so sure that me, this Western, white mutt, american male, somehow the way I express and experience and live within the realm of my relatively same sense created state is the correct way for an Iranian, theologically driven person to live. It's just so, I said, and at the even still beyond that.

Josh Barnett: 35:56

The way that we live in modernity and postmodernity you could really call it is like just a barely a slice out of human existence and how human beings have operated and lived in the world. Democracy is leagues younger than monarchies, yet we think that somehow democracy is default. The best thing that is possible is to be the person that's having to take on the role of the other, to the point where we had Xi Jinping show up to speak to Biden and they're like oh, what are you doing? You know, you know this guy's a dictator and he's like well, even if he is addicted, then it's just like, just by mentioning dictator, all of a sudden we're insulting him or the whole press goes ga ga.

Josh Barnett: 36:49

If you can say that you think dictatorship from your particular American perspective sounds awful, well, what is the problem with somebody else wanting to live that way?

Josh Barnett: 37:00

Let's just say are they evil people because they live under some sort of prime executive or soul executive, which you can call a dictator, a tyrant, has different historical meanings, but the way that it has entered into our lexicon in English now has a negative connotation.

Josh Barnett: 37:20

But really dictator has negative connotations because we have painted it as such for the last 100 years. And it's not me making an argument for, against dictatorships, it's just me saying we live so utterly blind and arrogant to the way the world has been and has been infinitely longer than the way the world has been and is as far as we are to understand it. We're like four generations into this at best, and the world is infinitely older than that, and I mean the world with human beings in it. So back to the cyclical thing Everything grows, it's, there's a seed, it grows, it blossoms, it withers and it dies. So that is the way I see the world and I think that if you took the time to see, to look at the world in that lens across vast amounts of history, you'll see the same.

Tom Higgins: 38:25

And yeah, I don't think there's anything conspiratorial about what you said. I think that's the perspective of a well traveled, well cultured war master and I know you yourself are pretty into the Norse and Viking history and culture and stuff like that and I myself dive pretty deep into the Celtic and the Irish history and way of life and just kind of how they did things and I'm sure you have an admiration just for the strength and the virtues and stuff that they all had back then. And as far as places you visited or places you want to go or like yeah, you have been, is there any favorite cultures or way of life that you experienced in your career?

Josh Barnett: 39:12

I'm very partial to the Japanese. You know I live there at times so I've always had a fascination with Japanese culture. I think some of it distills down to the concept of honor and that it still exists there, and Bushido and Budo as a warrior person, but with a side of intellectual craving, it just always kind of felt very at home and at heart to me. And I think that's always kind of nuts about the cultural stuff, the shows and movies and animation, martial arts and Japanese pro wrestling and all this kind of stuff. But I'd say, as I've gotten older I've been really far more interested in going to Europe and spending a lot of time be at Eastern or Eastern Europe and just seeing these old, beautiful places built by people long since gone and some of whose ancestors may have even had their lines ended at some point for one reason or the other. I think that's just incredible. I also think it's very incredible to see the works of people so driven by what you could call like higher calling, higher striving. You know for them a lot of times it was Christian. Well, you say Christian, but I also would say that if you look at European, christianity is heavily infused with European paganism, especially Germanic. But that honestly makes complete sense when you see that who, who it was, that made up the state of the church when they came from, things like the Holy Roman Empire, and the fact that I think that if you took Christians, let's just say they were all Protestants. Okay, I'm not going to get in any like fight about you know which Christian sex or legit or not or whatever, but I would say that if you took a slice across Protestants across the world, I think you'd find that, whether they be you know they're all Protestants, but they're all going to do it a slightly different way and the more you leave it in a country and you left to its own devices, it'll start to take on the shape of the way that that ethnic group has formulated their cultures and ways of being and ways of living in the world. Just naturally, I think it's called a pseudomorphous and that's this concept, this I, this, this, this idea that this, this description of pseudomorphous is. You have a rock formation of some sort that gets filled full of something else, but the something else can only take on the shape that is available to it within the formation of the rock itself, so it can be filled full of agates or crystals or whatever right, but it can only grow into a certain directions and in certain ways, because that rock limits the way and and it constructs it in a shape within what's available. And I think that us were that way too.

Josh Barnett: 42:34

And in the way of viewing the world from, say, the last hundred hundred years, from the Western perspective, that really kind of splice in the face of every concept of looking at people and the world, and maybe even more so, let's say more often, more after people like popper and Rawls, and there's others that could throw in there, but like this concept, well, it's even kind of Russoian, right, like the state of nature, man's all the same.

Josh Barnett: 43:09

No, it's not like that. And in fact I think that the world is made full of people that are vastly to only slightly different, but different all the same, is in fact the thing that makes the beauty of the world so astounding. And for there to be so many different variations of what you call as the same thing, you know, concepts of worship that don't resemble each other or even sometimes overlap in ways that they would never have expected nor did on purpose. I love it, I absolutely am enthralled with the differences of the world and I've always kind of felt that it's it's not saying things like diversity is our strength. It's it's like saying things that seeing it that the world is a giant puzzle and you need the right and all the different puzzle pieces are different, so therefore you can make the bigger picture.

Josh Barnett: 44:07

It's not about better or worse or whatever. I think that's entirely contextual, but that's okay. I don't need someone to be as good at all the same things that I'm good at. In fact, it would be better if they were all good at things that I was bad at and therefore between the two we make something better. And you know, I don't see the world in one broad brushstroke of color. I see it as a massive mosaic, and that makes things more difficult, but it also makes things more beautiful, and I'd not have it any other way.

Tom Higgins: 44:43

Yeah, definitely. I like to use the analogy that it's life's like a RPG or MMORPG and everybody has their, you know, strengths and skills to fit the group comp, to make things run smoothly, whether it's, you know, culturally or on an individual level and stuff like that. So, yeah, I definitely love that. And to touch on the Japan thing, I've always admired the sumo culture. Well one, because wrestling, you know, you've got to cut weight a lot of times and you've got to starve. They do the exact opposite they gorge. They have very short, intense matches instead of, you know, dragged out matches where you got to put in a bunch of cardio, not to say their training is not intense, but the matches are a lot shorter and very intense.

Tom Higgins: 45:28

Yeah, it's, it's something super badass and I like the spiritual aspect that they put on it. Any other styles, like some of the different random folk wrestling is. I'm a nerd when it comes to all that and I try to look at all these different obscure folk wrestling styles around the world. Is there any interest on your end to go? No?

Josh Barnett: 45:48

I'm too old. I'm too old for that and I think it's cool Some of them there's, so there's so few people participating in them. It's kind of a bummer. But if I was younger I'd probably be more game for it. But then, you know, you got to remember at a point it came to. It came to a point in my career where you know this is how I get paid. So doing stuff like that was like yeah, what if I get injured doing swinging or something like that's not worth it. So you know and you're like, why would you get injured? It's like, well, you don't know, you could just step wrong and roll your ankle or whatever, or someone could fall into your knee. It's just anything could happen, something stupid and and what would normally seem like, oh, that wouldn't happen, but you just never know. So when you've got contracts that pay you to compete on the line, you're not going to go out there and I don't know, on a wild hair, go try to do Turkish oil wrestling or Senegalese lamb.

Tom Higgins: 46:42

Honestly, and it is always something stupid and unpredictable, like you said, and of course, with such a long and brutal career, especially in the wild, wild, blessed days, I'm sure you racked up plenty of wear and tear. As it is, so that was probably a wise decision, something we usually will ask. Do you have any unexplainable stories, anything paranormal or mystical?

Josh Barnett: 47:04

if you will, you know I will say that I'm open to and wanting to experience those things. I visit assoaries and old churches and graveyards and things. When I travel I can feel that there is some sort of an energy to those places. I believe I think, like you step in people, places like St Peter's Basilica and Rome and in the Vatican, you just go, wow, okay, well, I did yell at a front desk girl, a desk girl and a security guard At this. At the end of this small assoary there's like there was a cathedral in Rome. You go visit. It's got a little museum at the bottom to the monks that the cathedral was built for. I've they weren't Benedictines, maybe they were. Forget who they were, what order they were, but they traveled around the world and did all kinds of good deeds or whatever. But so you can see all these old relics and paintings and things. And then at the end there's an assoary. So I walking, I'm walking through it. There's classical music plays on these little speakers that they have mounted.

Josh Barnett: 48:08

I find it all very peaceful and beautiful and a way to keep the living in touch and in respect. And what is the word I'm looking for here? Like not exactly all, but in reflection of death itself, which I think is very important. So I could hear I'm just I was the only guy there and I heard you hear them just like Jabber John and laughing and just being loud because there's no door at the end of this thing and so it's just pissing me off, just ruining the silence. Well, it wasn't exactly sign because of the low classical music, but the setting, and I walked out of there and I just ate them alive, just chewed them out. A new asshole telling them how disrespectful they were to you laugh like that, a dead people, you do thing. There's like, oh hey, they, they freaked out.

Josh Barnett: 49:01

But I'll say this I've gone to places where people are like, oh, it's haunted or this or that, and I'd go like like the Queen Mary down here. They say, oh yeah, you know this, this boats haunted and all this kind of stuff. So there's areas that are usually roped off and we were there for this metal festival and I just like, okay, so I just walked off into some dark, you know, creepy looking section of the boat and part of the whole, and I'm just like, okay, show me whatever you got. What are you? What's your deal? What's the thing? And it just people are freaking out and I'm like, okay, well, I leave and I go. Nothing, nothing happened. I saw nothing, felt nothing. I don't know. What does exist or doesn't, it's there. I'm willing to see it and be proven of its existence. But beyond that, I don't know.

Josh Barnett: 49:53

Maybe I could say I have an altar in my house full of things that are very important to me. It is built around a statue of Santa Marta, although I'm not a practitioner of Santa Marta, it was just I thought it was really cool and it was something that I picked up on a whim on my birthday and I just felt I don't know like I should do it and I just use it as something as a placeholder for, or death, which I feel is again something that people should be more accustomed with and be more at ease with.

Tom Higgins: 50:30

Yeah, definitely, and that's a perfect way to segue into something else I definitely wanted to talk to you about that you and I have in common and not a lot of people have an appreciation for, is death metal. For people who are familiar with it, your nickname. Does it come from Bolt Thrower, right? Like isn't that a Bolt Thrower song? And even some of your merch I see has like a inspiration of the logo from Bolt Thrower. Is that accurate?

Josh Barnett: 50:52

Yes, so, yes, the nickname was given to me by Bolt Thrower and it has two meanings. One, it comes from the song and the album and the band they gave it to me, but also Warhammer 40k. There's a character called Horace the Warmaster. And you know me, shayna is considered my one of my acolytes of the Luna Wolves. So we're very big Warhammer 40k fans and geeks.

Josh Barnett: 51:18

But Bolt Thrower gave me the original digital artwork that they used to put their logo on things and print on shirts and then with that I was able to get a graphic designer because the letters matched up perfectly. There are four letters in Bolt and Josh and there are seven and Thrower and Barnett. So it worked just perfectly. Yeah, that is. And you know, I've seen people being like, oh, look at that. Oh, you know, ripping off, stealing Bolt Thrower stuff. It's like actually, no, officially given Bolt Thrower's stuff by permission. So, and you know, me and my buddy Adam launched that MMA gear and training line called War Materials. We're going to have our core lineup coming out a bit later this year, but our first project, we did it in collaboration with Amon Amarth and Amon Amarth's design team did the artwork and everything and then we got it all created and put together and put it out there and sold it on a limited basis, whatever.

Tom Higgins: 52:22

I do.

Josh Barnett: 52:22

Nickname story. I always do it, yeah, I always do it with metal in mind. You know, it's metal, fucking depth of false metal, metal forever. It's just that way. And even my other like t-shirts that I create and make. I basically just hit up a dude and I'm like yo make me some shit that looks like a cover of a revenge album Done, you know.

Tom Higgins: 52:47

Hell, yeah, definitely always appreciated that about you too. I mean, yeah, you know, like new metal and just like heavier music was kind of associated with the early MMA culture. If you will, but never you know, true death metal. Like I'm a nerd, I love Florida death metal and black metal and all that. And what are some other bands that you're pretty into?

Josh Barnett: 53:07

Yeah, I mean MMA always has this, this like extreme, with three X's, Doritos, mountain Dew, yeah, just kind of new metal, a Jinko jeans and dudes with white dudes with dreadlocks and it's just like, oh God, you know, it's so awful. Sometimes it really is. I mean, I remember there was a period of time you could not be at an MMA show and get away from let the bodies hit the floor. Honest, god damn, if I never heard the song again, it would be too soon. You know, not to like be shitty to those dudes or nothing. They got their music, they got their stuff. It's theirs to play and theirs to say, but just doesn't, doesn't speak to me. So for me, I'm like, well, I'm legit about this shit. So the UFC is really anti extreme metal and they will fight you to ridiculous degrees to get you not to play it.

Josh Barnett: 54:06

And when I first got back, when I said when I got back to the UFC, I said okay, well, they asked me what's my, what's my walkout music? It's like, well, this is it. And I sent the fourth crusade by bull thrower and she comes, the gal comes back like, oh, do you have something else by this band? This may be, you know, maybe not as aggressive or whatever, and I'm like, are you kidding me? It's both thrower. What else do you think it's going to be? Not to mention, this is the music I walk out to, and I've been walking out to you for years. This is who you paid for, and you know she kept kind of like, oh, but you know so, and so said this I'm like I don't really care. You know, I either walk out to this or you play me nothing. You play dead silence, don't you play a fucking note? And then it was like, okay, we'll approve it. I'm like don't you put some fucking garbage music on while I walk out. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear anything. I would rather have the silence so I could hear the, the, the violence in my head, speak to me instead of whatever superfluous piece of shit music that you somehow drudged up out of some bullshit top 40 list.

Josh Barnett: 55:18

The same issue I had with Victor Henry, because he comes out to Goat War when steel bearing teeth for revolt, and it's been that way for most of his career. Before that, it was the Great Stone War, by God damn it. Why am I forgetting their name? Oh man, I can see the album cover, but I cannot. Wins a plague. Oh nice, the Great Stone War by winds of play.

Josh Barnett: 55:45

Victor gets the UFC and I'm sending the music. It was for a fight night card and I get I'm like, just be prepared, I will deal with it though. So I told him. In fact, actually I kept him out of the loop because I didn't want him to get stressed out, so I was already ready for this shit. Again I get a text message Could you? Okay? I go, well, what, explicitly, is the issue? And it's like, oh, you know so and so, doesn't like you know stuff this heavy and all that. And I go, okay.

Josh Barnett: 56:14

And then I went through the last like five fight nights, picked the songs that they let people walk out to and went through all the lyrical comp compositions. And then I come back and I'm like, well, what's your issue with the song? Because you let so and so come out to this where it's where it says the n word I don't know how many times and talks about you know something about fucking bitches or something. And then you let this guy come out to this song it's all about smoking weed and being a drug addict. And then, and then, eventually I put this whole list together and eventually like your song's approved. I like, if you want to get a hair up your ass about music, it's like all right, well then, why don't people come out to all this nonsense, saying just just ridiculous shit that is potentially, like you know, harmful, I don't know whatever man, this kid can't walk out to go to work Because what you know, I mean it's like just fighting these little battles over stupid shit like that. It gets old. At the moment, so far, they've no more of that stuff.

Josh Barnett: 57:12

But bands I'm listening to, well, honestly, if it's rainy as shit out here in LA right now, so I've just been listening to Dungeons and because I drive around feels like it really fits the mood, which people don't know that's a genre, not a band. Oh yeah, there is a band called Dungeons and for a person. Then I'm interested to hear Kerry Kingsley project just came out. He had said something to me about doing a new, he was going to have a new band, all this kind of shit, and I just was like all right, cool, I ain't saying shit to anybody, I'm shutting up, look forward to it. They just put out something and Rolling Stone talking about it, which was pretty cool. So I'm interested to hear other that comes out. I don't know.

Josh Barnett: 57:51

You know I haven't been listening to a whole lot of death metal recently, but that's such a back catalog of stuff and honestly one of the things I like to do is I'll just pick a band that I'm, that I'm feeling at the moment, and then I just put the Spotify radio on and it'll just keep pulling stuff that has some sort of similarity to it.

Josh Barnett: 58:08

So, like I used to do that quite a bit with Jungle rot, great band Wisconsin and I know Canada Corps is going to be going out and tour again, as always. So catch him if you have a chance. It's obituary never stops touring, so the chances that you're going to see them are pretty high If you're going to these concerts. And well worth it. Amon Amarth is going to be hitting the road and you know who knows. I mean I was listening to some behemoth the other day because I needed to pick a walkout song for my grappling match and pull and a kiss W epic and I just basically fell right back onto conquer all. So I'll be pretty easy choice, but you know I had to make sure I checked all the boxes.

Tom Higgins: 58:53

It's funny how the UFC will prevent that, but it's okay to yeah, like you said, the other music or the fact that everyone's paying to watch guys bloody each other up and beat each other unconscious but the music, the sound is too aggressive for them.

Josh Barnett: 59:06

You know if I wanted to make an argument about the difference between certain types of music and it's possible negative effect on a populace and you know you could see people freaking out and being just coming right back at you with Campbell Corp's lyrics, especially the early stuff, Barnes and I get it.

Josh Barnett: 59:25

Oh, it's nuts, Right, I come blog what was it Dictate to? Vaginal and just insane stuff. But my argument would be okay, granted, however, the even those things that they're saying as absolutely off the wall, just sideways as they are. Oh, by the way, there's a comic of I don't you can probably find it out there somewhere by Hart Fisher, on Campbell Corp's lyrics illustrated. Yeah, I've seen it they're. They're hard to read, but I would say that the argument is this the stuff that, as crazy as the stuff in the Campbell Corp songs are, it's so crazy, it's so extreme, is so over the top and it involves something so massively psychotic and unbearable to pretty much 90% of the populace, if not more, because it's so gnarly. Like the things being described are not like drunken wins, it's like planned out, not like Zodiac killer kind of insane stuff which takes a certain type of person to even be able to pull that off. It's not tenable. Like it's people can't, they don't get there. Like it doesn't, they don't really think about it as something achievable in that way. Same with, like a lot of black metal stuff, the more satanic, whatever. I mean some people get caught up in the satanic stuff, but I mean it was a lot fewer than greater.

Josh Barnett: 1:01:00

But singing about being a drug addict, selling drugs, shooting potential rivals, in things in and around criminality, common criminality, that's like right down the street, that's every day. You see that all the time on the news. You don't see hordes of satanic demons tearing people's heads off or something. You don't see insane serial killers bashing people's faces in with hammers. Those people do exist but it's rare.

Josh Barnett: 1:01:31

Obviously, with conspiracy and chill, you've probably done all your. You know your least. Your Wikipedia searches on like toolbox killers and BTK and all that stuff. You know those people are exceptions, thank God, but you know that's so out there. But common moron getting high, selling drugs and whatever, shooting shit up, crashing their car with their kid in it and their and their baby mama and like all that, like all that kind of stuff. We're just getting messed up on ketamine and a club or all these kind of things. This is like. This is practically a stone's throw away for some people and achievable, if not something that they either do or they know people that do it. That's why I see it as worse.

Tom Higgins: 1:02:15

It's a lot more imitatable than uh yeah, hordes of zombies running, running it is.

Josh Barnett: 1:02:21

It's. It's a lot more imitatable and it's uh, you know, it's within a closer reach and it's also promoted Like it's. It's given a shine to it and given open, unfettered airplay to a degree. Oh yeah, and you just go. No one's going to play cannibal corpse, that's not going to happen. But you could turn on the radio and hear your stuff about how you should be a slut, or how you should treat women badly, or how you should sleep around or how you should cheat on people, and it's just like that's right within the grasp of every normal person.

Tom Higgins: 1:02:58

Yeah, and there's the whole idea that, uh, the CIA was kind of behind the gangster rap movement, but that's a, so it could be a whole episode. I mean they might be. I mean they were behind modern art right, that's a conspiracy done, totally true.

Josh Barnett: 1:03:11

Uh, cia was behind modern art because they felt like it would be. It could be something that was due to its nature of being so. I don't know, like um indistinct that it could be a some somehow a very great anti-communist uh weapon in the Cold War in terms of culture, uh, but all it did was just make a bunch of really shitty artists famous and continue to support, and it probably increased all the money laundering that goes on within the modern art world. You know, by the way, modern art is not about real investments and legitimate business. For the most part, it's about money laundering, uh, uh, propping up people whose works that you've purchased, you and your buddies have purchased a ton of, to then increase the value of and manipulate the market. It's totally fake, just like. Uh, well, you know that wasn't the FBI was behind Gloria Steinem Crazy, you know all that women's lip stuff and it was all government pushed, strange. But there's a lot of things that are like that, that, if you really think about them.

Josh Barnett: 1:04:17

They're not crazy conspiracies, because it didn't really take a whole. I mean, given the amount of resources that a government may have, it's not that hard to do. It just really isn't difficult in any sort of way. And if you think about it from a game perspective, it's like, okay, they really thought this was game theory that was going to achieve some sort of result for them. Doesn't matter if it seems stupid or brilliant. Again, humans are trying to win. So that's what you get. And you got to figure.

Josh Barnett: 1:04:45

If you, let's say, you're the person that can, that can architect, create and manipulate and fix or destroy a system, now you get I don't know seven, ten generation, seven generations removed from it. And now these people have can't do any of those things, they can just keep pushing the papers around, which is called rent seeking and managerialism. So they just man, they can just manage it. They can't actually create, they can expand upon what already exists, but not in any meaningful or dynamic or novel way. They just keep doing the same shit over and over and over and over and over again. But their ultimate interest lie in just making sure that they get to be able to do it.

Josh Barnett: 1:05:28

And even if they were removed from any position within official government that then they it's like they move from the inside toward the outside track and then they just circle around it, still sucking off the teeth of it until they get back in it or, you know, they stay within, they create something on that outside track like a Tony Blair, let's say. That guy has never been out of having his hand on a lever of some sort somewhere he's. If go, go follow whatever Tony Blair is up to and you'll see he's everywhere all over the world monkeying with things and doing so in concert with people like Bill Gates or other you know big well to do, elite types and you just go. Why the fuck is this guy listen to believed? Why is he get to tell people what to do so much? And he's not even in government? Because not all about whether you're, you haven't a title, it's all about what kind of real power you have.

Mike Straus: 1:06:20

Josh, on the music front, is there something that is in your playlist that people might be surprised to find out, that Josh Barnett listens to, like, for instance? You know I'm a huge little Richard fan. I think he was a genius. Is there anything like that that people might say, oh shit, he listens to that.

Josh Barnett: 1:06:38

Yeah, lots, but that's only because they're uncultured swine. It's not because someone's like I can't believe you. Listen to the letter, richard. You're just like what do you mean? Why the fuck do you not listen to little Richard? He is a genius, he's amazing. Fuck you for being so dumb. Right, I'm a huge, huge, huge.

Josh Barnett: 1:06:57

I'm a massive fan of to Pesh mode. I love people would expect me to like, feel the nephilim and sisters of mercy and stuff like that, but maybe even to Pesh mode. But it surprises some people sometimes. People would be surprised that maybe they would be. That's for I love jazz, even contemporary jazz, but I'm more of like a Miles Davis and Herb Alpert's in the contemporary side of things. I do like Chet Aikens and the guy who did take five. I'm a little tired so I can't quite remember his name off the top of my head but at Rondo Blue Rondo he's a clarinet player. But I like jazz quite a bit.

Josh Barnett: 1:07:46

I like classical music, not a big fan of opera. I don't like modern country at all. I could piss on it. It's not fair. It's awful Re-tooled R&B music as all it is and it's shit. But I do like old and outlaw country stuff like that you would find a lot of listens of Marty Robbins. Love Marty Robbins.

Josh Barnett: 1:08:12

Okay, this is my surprise people. I like city pop, which is a Japanese genre of music from the 80s. It brings me back to a childhood to watch an anime, to growing up in a different era. I'll surprise you. I used to love 311. I like to sing along with the songs and things like that. Yeah, I will surprise people all the time. Something will come on and I'll know the song and I'll sing along with it or whatever. I grew up quite a bit of Motown, 70s, 60s soul music, funk music, 80s, r&b mainly because my sister was always like, look, you want girls like you. You need to learn how to dance. So I did. I'm not a great dancer, but I'm good enough. So I can't. I mean, you can listen to Watane on the way to the gig, but then, you know, go out there and shake a tail feather.

Tom Higgins: 1:09:06

Mike was hoping that you would say you were Swifty, so you could verify his fandom too.

Josh Barnett: 1:09:12

Swifty, taylor Swift, no, I, I mean she. I guess she's good at what she does, but what she does, I find you know it's innocuous.

Josh Barnett: 1:09:20

But it's just. I'm not repulsed by it, it's just low-common denominator stuff. But she's a real fucking hard worker at it and she's great at it. I just don't like what it is. I, you know, going back to like Depeche Mode, I like when my pop music could be Depeche Mode, New Order, AC DC, Motley Crew, and then like the Jets and stuff from that Miami freestyle scene and Debbie Deb, and then it could also be Cindy Loper and Susie Sue and David Bowie, and that to me was a much, you know.

Josh Barnett: 1:09:59

I feel, bad for kids growing up these days that don't know what it's like for that to just be in the air, to have that helping shape you instead of the shit that passes for popular music these days. I think that the truth.

Tom Higgins: 1:10:14

Yeah, for real. I don't think anyone would really be surprised with any of that, because you're a real Renaissance man, josh. You're super smart guy, super well-traveled guy, interesting dude. And thanks for your time, brother. I'm definitely going to be looking out for that announcement you were saying regarding the pro wrestling You're hosting another catch tournament in May, right?

Josh Barnett: 1:10:36

Yes, that's the plan. The snake pit is going to come over here with some folks in May. We'll do a little camp and then we'll roll right into the tournament. Part of the camp is just, you know, goodwill, but also to help them get familiarized with the way we run our system, because with us it's a three second pin you can't pin a guy and guard because I believe a pin needs to be a total control position and I think if you're still in somebody's guard or bottom scissor, they can hold on to you, manipulate you, move your hips, attack your arms, all these different things.

Josh Barnett: 1:11:07

And I'm like well, I think a pin should be the kind of thing where your bottom person doesn't really have much capability of doing manipulating and adjusting and shifting you. I mean, one example would be a psychome from judo and that's a 20 second pin and you don't have to keep the shoulder, so totally flat, but the guy can't get off his back, so he loses. I want our pin to exemplify the pin as a, as a completely and totally dominating aspect when applied correctly, and if not, then I feel like it just doesn't have the same value. The other thing is you can't pin if you're caught in a submission, because I consider a dilemma Does your arm get broke, let's say, or do you score the pin? Well, one has to be free of the other before you can get it. That's my opinion there, and we allow jokes with no arm and we have points. That's the other thing, because with these tournaments, I want to move things along and I want to use points to incentivize playing the game in a certain way.

Tom Higgins: 1:12:07

Right, I like that. That's a bad ass, and all things go well on my end. I definitely expect to see you there, so looking forward to that as well. Anything else you want to plug?

Josh Barnett: 1:12:19

Just go to joshbronetcom. It's got all my stuff up there for the most part. You can find all my videos to order from BJJ Fanatic so you can learn some of the secrets of catch wrestling. It's straight from the horse's mouth this one right here, this Clyde Stale, talking to you because I've removed my bit and I don't have my oats strapped around my face at the moment so you can hear me. Then I've got some stuff with scientific wrestling, especially punishing rides, which I've heard a lot of great feedback on people as far as it really affecting their game in a positive way. And then always head to my social media, because that's all we do these days is doom scroll anyways, my as well, doom scroll on my feet. Josh Josh L Barnett on Twitter and Instagram.

Tom Higgins: 1:13:03

Definitely check Josh out Absolute legend. Thank you for coming on, brother. This has been great and I definitely hope to see you soon.

Mike Straus: 1:13:12

We're going to move this episode up too.

Josh Barnett: 1:13:13

before that announcement Well, I hope to see you out there seeing how you find our system. I imagine that you wrestled in high school and college some.

Tom Higgins: 1:13:23

Yeah, high school. I didn't go to college, but definitely a wrestling background.

Josh Barnett: 1:13:27

Did you ever do like freestyle and Greco or any of that in the off season?

Tom Higgins: 1:13:31

So no, I actually still have never done freestyle or Greco. I pretty much transition right after more submission grappling.

Josh Barnett: 1:13:39

Well, our tournaments are a lot like a collegiate and a D1 collegiate match and an international style wrestling match, all kind of pieced together. And you know, we try to run our tournaments just like if you were at the US Open for freestyle or if you were at the NCAA finals for Division one.

Tom Higgins: 1:13:59

I love it, definitely looking forward to it. Be sure to check Josh out, guys.

Mike Straus: 1:14:03

Thanks, brother. Thank you, take care, man. That was a very cool conversation. We covered a lot of different things and they're all things that I wanted to cover, so that was fucking interesting.

Tom Higgins: 1:14:17

Pretty much what I expected out of getting Josh out here. Like I said, he's a smart guy, he's an interesting dude, he's got some weird stuff himself, so I knew that episode wouldn't disappoint, and on just a fanboy level I've been wanting to talk with him, so pretty sweet.

Mike Straus: 1:14:33

Yeah, I mean, dude, everything from heavy metal, mma, fighting, pro wrestling, fucking duties and Renaissance man.

Tom Higgins: 1:14:40

Yeah, I think we'll be able to get him back. I'm hoping to get a lot more well acquainted with him. Hopefully I'll go hit his tournament, kick ass, hang out with him after and get a lot more collaboration with him. What is the tournament? Well, sometime in May in California. So I would like to add US champion of catch wrestling to my credential and do it at Josh's tournament.

Mike Straus: 1:15:02

It would be sick. So you said that's in May. I would love to go out there with you and like, document it, record it. We could do like a fucking member we're talking about. I wanted to do a documentary, that would be perfect.

Tom Higgins: 1:15:15

Sounds like some badass Patreon content.

Mike Straus: 1:15:18

Like I could record you. You know I could start a training camp, you know, all the way through. Until fucking go out there with you record fucking everything all the way through. Let's fucking do it. Yes, that is that's what we're doing. Well, for people that are consistent listeners. We appreciate you. You guys know who we are. Continue the support to five star reviews. All the social media follows. We appreciate all of the support and obviously necessary for this thing to grow. So thank you, guys. For anybody that's new, I am Mike Strauss, sub book mic on social media, former mixed martial arts journalist, former heroin addict, lifelong truth seeker and Mr Motherfucking Tom Higgins, my co host. Who are you?

Tom Higgins: 1:16:05

The headhunter. Martial artists, martial arts coach, also lifelong truth seeker.

Mike Straus: 1:16:11

Yeah, just two truth seekers exposed in the keepers with deep times and chill vibes, I think we have every time, every time, I say it feel like we say this every time but this was another fucking good one to stay away from child molesters.