Barnett Says "No"

Fighters.com’s third-ranked heavyweight “Babyface Assassin” Josh Barnett (23-5) will not face Heavyweight Champion “Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko (28-1) as expected at Affliction’s January event, MMA Weekly reported Thursday.

Barnett met with Emelianenko on a recent trip to Japan where the possibility of a fight between them was discussed, but he decided then that he would turn it down.

Barnett said, “I’m not trying to make anybody look bad or talk about the details of it, but it’s just not a fight that’s going to happen in January.  And I think that the feeling is actually mutual.”

He added, “It would be (logical) for the fans, but the fans don’t understand contracts or the way things have been put down on the back end in terms of the business aspect of it.  Or the details between both of the fighters.  So, it’s not really that we want to rob the fans of something, it’s just that I don’t think it’s possible.”

After defeating “Rock” Pedro Rizzo (16-8) in Anaheim, east of Los Angeles, 19 July, Barnett whetted fans’ appetites by describing a potential match-up versus Emelianenko as “the kind of fight that nobody will forget.  It’ll be the one that you write books about.”

Barnett was originally scheduled to headline the Affliction event in October against fourth-ranked “Pitbull” Andrei Arlovski (13-5) before it was postponed to January.

Arlovski has since been rescheduled to fight Roy Nelson (13-2) 4 October on EliteXC’s CBS card.