MMA icon Josh Barnett has explained why he has decided to pause his Bloodsport shows.
During the end of Bloodsport XV over the weekend Barnett told fans that the event was being put on “hiatus” and could return in the future.
On the The Ariel Helwani Show, Barnett said he is worried about the show becoming a shadow of what is once was.
“I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it and I didn’t want it to come off as a gimmick or for people to think, ‘They’re just doing this for the purpose of drumming up interest’ or that it was insincere. There was a lot of conflicting feelings in my own heart about whether this was going to be the case or not. When it’s all said and done, I feel like I absolutely made the right choice here. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing or a tragedy or major overarching bad issue but for me Bloodsport had an evolution of where it was trying to get to. That was not going to be a traditional wrestling path especially because it’s not really made for the indie wrestling in a way that a lot of indie wrestling is done. You’re not doing shows with frequency. It’s not made for that,” he said.
Barnett talked about how hard the show is to book and produce.
“We don’t have the talent to keep up with it because you can’t book just anybody on this show. For me, that evolution was everything I was building on with that concept was to get it to that point where I felt like it could be put together in the best format in the best way possible to give it the ability to flourish at it’s best. We’re not there. We’re not close. For me, it was better to end it now than to keep going on and quite possibly diminish what the product is or run it down before we had a chance to get to where I feel like it would have been at it’s best,” he said.
One of the biggest frustrations for Barnett was trying to get advertising or sponsorship for the show and that just didn’t happen.
“We need more capital. We’d need our own office. We’d need more employees. We’d need a lot of things. The way that this show can best flourish is not the indie wrestling way. We’re not trying to be AEW, WWE, New Japan. We don’t have that kind of money and aren’t going to run at that capacity. Just like we’re not like anybody else in pro wrestling. We can’t take the same approach as other facets of pro wrestling. It’s quite possible we can put together what is needed to fully envision what I see Bloodsport as being but it’s going to take a lot. It’s a lot more than most indie shows, a lot less than major (promotions), but it’s going to need aspects of both. Certain things I want to do are pay wrestlers better, have bonus incentive structures for certain things as far as numbers, nd also be able to get multiple match deals with people that we can honor so we can make storylines and create more compelling aspects to this,” he said.
