The third Bloodsport and 2nd with Josh Barnett as the namesake is happening on September 14th, and they’re looking to capitalize off of their hit of a show form WrestleMania weekend this past April.
The current announced crop of talent include IMPACT Wrestling stars Killer Kross and most recently announced Zachary Wentz, NJPW’s Jon Moxley, NWA Women’s Champion Allysin Kay, indy stars Anthony Henry, Chris Dickinson, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Matt Makowski and returning competitors JR Kratos and of course Barnett himself.
As of right now, only Kross, Kratos, Dickinson, Smith and Barnett have had any experience in past Bloodsport shows. The show usually boasts a big lineup of heavy hitters, technical masters and former MMA fighters, but the third installment seems to be deviating itself from the tried and true reputation of the show.
Names like Zachary Wentz and Allysin Kay stick out like sore thumbs in this show. Wentz is being described on Twitter by his peers as being someone who “…could have been a pro MMA fighter.”
This is Awesome.
People have zero fucking clue about @zachary_wentz in real life.
Stand out Amateur Wrestler, could have been a pro MMA fighter.
Zach’s gonna kick someones head in. https://t.co/jcGL935dJh
— The DRAW (@TheSamiCallihan) August 8, 2019
While Kay seems to have gotten the booking cus she…I have no idea why. She claims to be an MMA enthusiast and maybe she’s even trained at an MMA gym for all I know. She kinda got attention by saying she wanted in on the next show, and said she wanted to “Butterbean these hoes”. If they book her against a woman, possibly even MMA legend Cris Cyborg , then maybe it’ll be worthwhile. However if they try to do an inter-gender match up I doubt it’ll be anything worth my time.
The show has a substantial lack of known commodities in the realm of combat sports. The last show featured legit combat sport standouts like MMA stars Josh Barnett, Minoru Suzuki, Dan Severn, Frank Mir and even Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner Dominic Garrini.
This year, the only legit fighters they have are Barnett and Matt Makowski. If you don’t know Makowski’s MMA background, don’t worry, no one else does either. Makowski hasn’t had a pro fight in nine years. There might be a third in Anthony Henry; a self professed MMA fighter. I’ve found nothing that confirmed he had a fight, though there is an ‘Anthony Henry’ that is the right age (35) and is 2-0. However, there’s no fight data or photo to confirm it’s the same man.
Needless to say, the star quality isn’t there this time around. Unless the last batch of announcements are people like Ken Shamrock, Cris Cyborg, Chael Sonnen types, with Minoru Suzuki, Tim Thatcher and Tom Lawlor sprinkled in for flavor; I might sit this show out.
It’s great to give people breaks but this is a special attraction event, and aren’t a regular occurrence so you have to give fans bang for their buck. Reputations and qualifications matter. You can’t just pretend a Matt Makowski is going to replace a Minoru Suzuki or even a Tim Thatcher.
Bloodsport needs to up their game to get me involved.