St-Pierre’s Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 8 Review

Why not? I don’t like GCW’s actual product all that much if we’re being honest, but one thing they do spectacularly is appeal (pander?) to a lot of different walks of wrestling. If you like mindless spotty chicanery, you’re covered. If you want men going through doors, which I’m sure is someone’s kink somewhere, you’re covered. And if you want “shoot” wrestling, you get Bloodsport. Originally a Matt Riddle gimmick before he got snapped up by THE FED~!, it’s now transitioned into the hands of someone even MORE acquainted with failing drug tests in Josh Barnett. I think it fits Barnett a little better all things considered, and he’s done a fine job with the project since taking it over. And since I’m uber-excited to finally have a normal Wrestlemania week to look through, here we go.

We are LIVE from Fair Park in Dallas, TX. This is a part of Game Changer Wrestling’s Collective which hosts roughly thirteen million wrestling shows over the course of the weekend. Before we start, we get a muted version of the old PRIDE introductions where each fighter comes out to posture before the show. It sucks that GCW was too cheap to shell out money for Lenne Hardt so these men and women could see what it’s like to be TRULY serenaded into combat. In all seriousness though, it’s a good gimmick to use for the show and to get some hype going before anyone locks horns.

Your hosts are Lenny Leonard and Rocky Romero. Love to see Lenny on commentary and Rocky is a damn fine color guy wherever he is.

A note; contests can’t be won via pinfall and there are no ropes. You’d think Dragon Gate is the exact opposite promotion they’d want to ape, but there you go.

Masha Slamovich vs. Janai Kai
This match wasn’t anything you’ll remember in a day or two, but it worked quite well as an appetizer for the rest of the show. They told a simple striker vs. grappler match with the grappler being the much more skilled combatant, and it worked well on that basis. I hear good things about Slamovich and I liked how she carried herself here, while Kai unfortunately never got much of a chance to show herself. For an opener on a show like this, you can’t complain about what you got here. **1/4

Ninja Mack vs. Yoya
This match was a heap of fun, capped off with one of the more dynamic finishes I’ve seen so far this year. Ninja Mack’s unmasking before the bout gave it a little bit of gravity, and they really worked to that and made it feel significant. It’s sad to say but I haven’t heard of Yoya before, but like Slamovich earlier, I thought he carried himself very well for the environment he was in. He was quick, serious, and had a clear strategy for victory. He also played subtly heel, taking a breather and going so far as to Matt Hughes slam poor Ninja Mack to the floor.

Beyond early impressions however; not enough words – positive ones, mind you – can be said for the bump/sell-job Yoya performed at the finish. Ninja Mack hardly did any of his famous flippy-doo’s, but the closest he got to it was an absolutely stunning 540 Kick that Yoya nearly killed himself bumping off of. It brought the crowd, the commentators, and me to audible gasps and the immediate KO stoppage from the ref was a brilliant way to put the exclamation point on it. All told, this was a delightful little surprise and made an instant impression on a show where they very well could have gotten lost in the shuffle. I could probably write a novel about how much I loved the finish alone, but they worked a damn good little scrap to get there. ***1/2

Bad Dude Tito vs. Royce Isaacs
This was two beefy lookin’ dudes doing worked faux-MMA, which is what you watch the show for and if that’s all you wanted from this, you are probably happy. It had some good exchanges and suplexes, but by and large there wasn’t much to it and they didn’t really do anything the women in the opener didn’t do with a little more aplomb. **

Slade vs. Alex Coughlin
This was short, but by golly, it was memorable and had more personality and grit to it than anything on the show thus far. Coughlin came into this one like a madman and every single tie-up and grappling exchange they had felt consequential. They told such a tight story in such a meager time allotment that all I could think about after it ended was what pros these guys were. That’s what wrestling is, in any form. Taking what you’re given by “management” and creating something great around those parameters. I’m quite sure a longform match between these two would be more hoss fight goodness, but that’s not what a fan watching Bloodsport wants and that’s not what would have made sense in this environment. What did make sense was a knockdown, dragout war of attrition that happened to be four minutes long, and we got all of that and more here. I loved this. ***1/2

John Hennigan vs. Simon Gotch
This was fun for however long it lasted, as Hennigan did a fine job doing just enough to transition his style into something suitable for Bloodsport. It’s still something of a novelty that he – of all people – is wrestling here, but he was impressive in how he adjusted and I don’t think it’s wild to suggest he’ll do okay in future outings. He didn’t go out there and pretend he was some sort of MMA guru, but he did use his freaky athleticism and pro wrestling fundamentals to acclimate himself well and still get something fun out of it. His goofy movements actually stuck out here and gave him an identity, which may help him be a lasting force above guys like Tito or Isaacs before him. I have a lot to say about him because truthfully, he kind of ate Gotch alive to the point that I don’t have anything tangible to say about the former Vaudevillain. But this isn’t a style of give and take, so I can’t say it’s a complaint more so than an observation. The crowd just wanted to see Johnny Bloodsport and how he’d work in this environment, and the results were surprisingly positive. **1/2

Zeda Zhang vs. Marina Shafir
There wasn’t much in the way of the pure excitement previously seen in say, Ninja Mack vs. Yoya, but this was by far the most interesting grappling exhibition of the show thus far. And it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the most tenured grappler of the bunch (so far), Marina Shafir, had something to do with it. She wasn’t an MMA mainstay or anything, but is a legitimate high level combat athlete in a way that makes her perfect for this environment. She moved so fluidly on the mat that you felt like she could completely ruin poor Zeda if she actually had to. And it’s not that Zhang was incompetent or anything; she made a heck of an account of herself, having a lot of success in counters and favorable positioning to get herself in good spots. Marina was definitely the superior grappler, but you got the idea that Zhang had a lot of heart and skill despite that. So all told, this was a lot of fun that could have done with a little more intensity if we’re going to nitpick. ***

Timothy Thatcher vs. JR Kratos
This was the closest thing to a pro wrestling match the show has seen so far and when you think about it, it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Bloodsport is almost “Timothy Thatcher: The Promotion” and the guy has worked his matches like this since God knows when. He didn’t have to adapt anything to fit here, so working a Timothy Thatcher match was more than okay. He still builds his matches to those pro rasslin’ climaxes despite his idosyncracies. So guess what? The match was tons of fun, especially with the added context that this is Thatcher’s first match since getting cut from WWE, and his first match in general since August 2021. He looked delighted to be wrestling in front of a real crowd again, and he wrestled his ass off because of it. Of course, the hardway blood from Kratos helped, but it felt like a cherry on top of a good fight rather than a crutch.

Speaking of Kratos, I thought he was wonderful. He’s definitely built like your big guy pro wrestler, but he adapts to this style just fine and has enough fight in him to make it feel organic. He’s gigantic, but uses that frame to inflict punishment, so it worked like a charm. He had his strength, Thatcher had his technique and they duked it out until Kratos’ power became too much for Thatcher to handle. It’s a simple story, but within it we got some bloodletting and some good clubbering, which is a recipe for success if the ring has ropes or not. ***1/2

Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Yuya Uemura
This was definitely the most interesting stylistic matchup of the night and thankfully, they worked to that novelty and had a fun bout because of it. Speedball is a great pro wrestler and while you don’t always think of him in scenarios like Bloodsport, it makes a ton of sense when you put some thought to it. He’s obviously heavily based in martial arts and while he may not be the wrestler that Uemura or Josh Barnett are, he’s still got some combat chops that make him an interesting addition to the roster. I like how they played the striking exchanges especially, because Uemura had to keep himself at a distance to find the perfect opening rather than bumrushing in. That was made clear, because any time he made a wrong move on the feet, he got kicked a whole bunch of times and nearly finished. But once Yuya took his time and found a way to outgrapple the speedier (hehe) foe, he worked in that collegiate wrestling acumen and put it to use. It does puzzle me that no one in GCW thought to google Uemura’s name, unless he’s actually going by YUYU UEMERA which sounds like Wheeler Yuta’s gimmick name in Kaiju Big Battel or something. At least the wrestling part of it rocked. ***

JONAH vs. Josh Barnett
Short and sweet, but like a lot of this show, this had a fun story attached to it to keep it together. Barnett is very rarely outsized in a contest like this, and he got worn out for a good while by a guy with a good weight advantage on him. That meant he had to work from the bottom, and he used a surprising amount of explosiveness and fire to make that work. He had to wear the weight of the gigantic JONAH the whole time, and it took a last gasp of energy to get a hold in long enough to make JONAH quit. It’s very reminiscent of the old Royce Gracie/Kimo match in that way and I’m sure that’s the sort of psychology Barnett went in there with. So on that, this was everything you’d want even if it did feel a little short for all the buildup early. That’s how ya win fights sometimes though, and it’s not like I’m gonna tell Josh Barnett how to do that. Maybe if I was a USADA employee. **3/4

Biff Busick vs. Jon Moxley
When a match is this good in this sort of manner, I have trouble coming up with real English words to describe it. The primative ape in me just wants to yell BIG MAN FIGHT and give it thirty stars because these two beat the piss out of each other in such a way that it only brings out the neanderthal that rests deep in my brain, rather than the deep analytical wrestling fan that I like to fashion myself as. I think that’s all you, the reader, truly need to make sense of my opinion on this match. But I’m pretentious and managed to formulate thoughts in the post-nut clarity I experienced roughly five minutes after the finish.

Firstly, oh my God Biff Busick is great. I always kinda knew he was and he had his flashes of brilliance in NXT despite being grossly underutilized through much of his tenure. But it’s been an incredibly long time since I’ve seen just how incredible the man can be in a fight of this nature, and this might have been his all-time best performance in a singles match. He bled like a bastard, he hit Jon Moxley so hard that Tony Khan is doing breathing exercises to keep calm, and he had the obscene amount of toughness and fire that made him such an endearing wrestler in the first place. It took exactly one match, this one, to let me know that this man is going to be a force in the wrestling business wherever he ends up.

Jon Moxley is Jon Moxley and the idea that this man was Dean Ambrose once is proof that we live in different dimensions that just shift whenever God wants them to. This man can do any match with any opponent, but in this environment, he is a virtuoso. No one in the world can emit the sort of hard-working, palm-swinging death festival that this match wanted to emit better than Jon Moxley. He has such a keen sense of timing and intensity that while he definitely got the lion’s share of the offense, he used that to make Biff Busick look like a trillion bucks in getting his ass kicked. That’s the mark of a truly great pro wrestler and if there’s anything you can call Jon Moxley, that label is at the very top of the list.

For the first time tonight, this was a match that would have been a showstealer no matter what show you put it on. It would have been a breathtaking G1 Climax match. It would have been a fabulous AEW Dynamite main event. And if you could take the insulting announcing and cokehead direction (and suspend your disbelief for this hypothetical), it would have been one of WWE’s most adored matches of the century. No matter where you book this match, if it happens like this, you’re going to get your money’s worth. It’s that universally great, and without a nearfall or a dive in sight. I’m not even a guy who hates those. Dives and nearfalls rule… almost as much as Biff. But they worked such an unbelievably credible, gritty, and exciting affair that it didn’t need anything but what they brought to the dance. And some blood. That’s outrageous in 2022, but these two couldn’t have cared less and made Wrestlemania Weekend 2K22 perk up first day in. Track this down at once. ****1/4

Chris Dickinson vs. Minoru Suzuki
It’s unfair to these men for me to say this, but I can’t sit here and say they didn’t have trouble following the previous bout. And that’s purely on me given that the crowd was very much up for this match, but as the match wore on, it was definitely in the back of my head. I just felt as though, especially with the abrupt ending, this match didn’t quite hold the mantel of main event in the way that you’d hope. That sucks a little bit, because I thought this was a very engaging match.

It would be disingenuous to say that this was Minoru Suzuki going out of his wheelhouse, but I really did appreciate how he sold for Dickinson down the stretch. He’s not a guy that shows weakness willingly, so the fact that they went hard enough that Dickinson seemingly forced it out of him says enough. I liked how Dickinson just crumbled him to a pile of dust with a spinning back kick, because you’re so used to the endless forearm trades. It was Suzuki talking a whole lot of mess and then getting pulverized for a second, which is not a sight we see too much.

Selfishly, I do wish this match had a couple more minutes tacked onto it. And I know I’ve said that about a few matches here, but also understanding the style of the promotion’s abrupt, quick finishes. But as you could tell from the crowd reaction, the quick TKO did not suffice as a finish. It did not make sense to have a few elbows put down Minoru Suzuki, no matter how much you train your audience. Despite what you promote, this is not Pancrase and this match, above any others on the day, made me and the crowd both feel like we kinda got railroaded. Not to an infuriating extent, but it presents an issue with the Bloodsport style and/or booking. I understand and appreciate their intent, but it was not a satisfying or exciting end to what until then had been a delightful brawl. This match was more a victim of circumstance than anything, I’m afraid, but I applaud the decision to have Dickinson go over nonetheless. Even if it seems like Suzuki’s gonna keep having these awesome matches until he’s 75. ***1/4

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

This is definitely one of those shows whose quality is not to be determined via mean star rating. I had a blast watching it, a brisk 2 hours and 20 minutes of nonstop wrestling and action. Of course, I am a gigantic MMA fan which gives me slightly more insight into an event like this, but even without that, there's quality work up and down this 11 match/fight card. It's one of those shows you can watch in one sitting without much in the way of breaks, which in my world is a staggering compliment. You just have to know what you're getting into and if you really feel like you can watch 11 matches of worked MMA or something adjacent. If you can't, you still should do yourself a favor and watch Busick vs. Moxley. If you can, then you have a great way to start off your Wrestlemania weekend affairs in long-form. Either way, since it's my review, I have nothing but positive things to say about this show and this review hopefully illustrates that.