The Catch Wrestling World Championship 2023 took place on October 28th, 2023 and the Snake Pit arranged a fantastic superfight between Owen Livesey and Josh Barnett as the main event. Before these two talented grapplers hit the mats, they also had a to determine who would be this year’s catch wrestling world champions in each weight class. Barnett actually took a team of catch wrestlers with him to compete in their respective divisions and there were a number of MMA fighters and grapplers from all around the world stepping on the mats as well.
Once the dust had settled on each division and the 2023 class of catch wrestling world champions had been crowned, it was time for Owen Livesey and Josh Barnett to face one another. It may have seemed like an unusual choice of matchup when the promotion first announced it, but both men are catch wrestling veterans and there was some logic behind the matchmaking. Barnett is obviously one of the world’s most famous proponents of catch wrestling and although he’s almost 46, he was still competing in MMA as recently as 2016 and was at one point the UFC heavyweight world champion.
Although Livesey has never competed at that level, he is significantly younger than Barnett at 32 and has been actively competing very recently. He is a commonwealth games gold medalist in Judo, a veteran of multiple submission grappling rulesets, and even holds a 2-0 professional MMA record too. It was a tough match for both men and neither one was able to get the clean victory, so after ten minutes of action they went to a decision. It was Livesey who ended up getting the nod and although it was a close match, he emerged victorious over Barnett and established himself as one of the top catch wrestling competitors on the planet.
The Snake Pit announced that Owen Livesey had defeated Josh Barnett by decision at the Catch Wrestling World Championship 2023 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
