Josh Barnett will meet Owen Livesey in a catch wrestling superfight at The Snake Pit World Championships 2023 on October 28th, 2023. The two men are both fantastic grapplers who are known for their proficiency in standing grappling as well as their ability to use it under a variety of different combat sports rulesets. There is a significant age difference between them though, as Barnett is coming up to his 46th birthday and Livesey is only 32. While that certainly gives Livesey the athletic advantage, it does also mean that Barnett has significantly more experience in competition.
In fact, Josh Barnett made his professional MMA debut after years of experience in both wrestling and Judo all the way back in 1997 when Owen Livesey was just 5 years old. Barnett went on to become a UFC heavyweight world champion and fought for several other major MMA promotions like PRIDE and StrikeForce. He continued fighting in the sport until 2016, when he retired with an impressive 35-8 professional record against the very best heavyweight fighters of his generation. Barnett also competed at the ADCC world championship in 1999 and 2000, and famously submitted Dean Lister in a superfight at Metamoris 4.
Owen Livesey took a slightly different route into professional grappling as he was a talented Judo competitor, even winning a gold medal from the commonwealth games in 2014. He went on to win multiple British national titles in the sport before eventually transitioning to submission grappling and even earning an invite to ADCC 2022, over two decades after Barnett made his own debut for the promotion. Livesey has gone on to become a fan-favorite at Polaris for his high level of standing grappling skill and has even embarked on a professional MMA career himself, currently sitting at 2-0.
The Snake Pit Wigan announced the news that Josh Barnett and Owen Livesey would be facing one another in a catch wrestling match in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
