Barrett: "The USA is coming"

This Saturday, American middleweight Wayne Barrett will return to the GLORY ring for the first time since making his debut for the organization at GLORY 9 NEW YORK with a stoppage victory over Mike Lemaire.

He is fighting in a reserve bout for the Middleweight Championship Tournament taking place on the main card. If he can beat Robby Plotkin, a product of Matt Serra’s gym and a training partner of UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, he will potentially be just a fight away from challenging for the GLORY middleweight title.

“I fought him before, in the amateurs. I get the feeling he is going to try and replicate his win over Casey Greene in New York,” he says, referencing the savage knees to the head that Plotkin ultimately stopped Greene with in the first round of their GLORY 9 contest. “He won’t be able to do that to me though, I’m going to be too technical for him.”

Regarding the middleweight tournament itself, if he doesn’t get a call-up to the final, Barrett isn’t sure that he can pick a winner. The four participants - Artem Levin, Joe Schilling, Jason Wilnis and Kengo Shimizu - are all top-tier and capable of taking victory.

“I think all the guys are tough. From what I have seen Wilnis is a really strong puncher and keeps coming forward. Levin is the most clever guy there because he’s doing what we do here in the West against guys that aren’t used to it,” Barrett says.

“He’s obviously been watching Roy Jones Jr as well. Schilling has got good movement, he’s maybe a little underestimated. His only downfall might be his chin. He knocks a lot of people out but with elbows, which he can’t use in GLORY. I think if I was putting money down I’d expect to see Levin or Wilnis win the final but I could also see Schilling edging it.

Kickboxing’s roots are disparate but strongly rooted in a few cultures: the Muay Thai art of Thailand, the karate schools of Japan and the Dutch fighters who have dominated the top tournaments for nearly two decades. Barrett’s own journey started in the exotic surroundings of Jamaica in the Caribbean.

“I’m West-Indian, I was born in Jamaica to an American citizen. In Jamaica we didn’t have too many channels and we always had these old martial arts movies on TV, guys jumping over stuff and flying kicks and stuff,” he recalls.

“I was a kid in the house doing this stuff so my parents put me in martial arts because I was so hyperactive. It really made me calmer and helped me understand myself better, my first martial arts teacher really molded me into a better person. Martial arts made me a better human being.

Barrett’s family relocated to New York, which is his home city in the US.

“I’m originally from New York, I moved to Georgia a while ago but I’m originally from New York. In Georgia I train a lot with Douglas Lima, he fights for Bellator. He may only be 170lbs but he hits really, really hard. Brian Stann as well. Those two guys really helped with my mental game as well, he reveals

“From New York, I train with Uriah Hall. I never trained with anyone as fast as that guy, and he is really technical too. I train with Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller too. He just came off a very controversial loss to Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic in Croatia recently. he is 265lbs, so if anyone thinks they are going to frighten me with power they better think again.

“I’m ready for anyone who thinks they are going to bully me or that they are more technical than me or faster than me. I am very fast, a lot of people underestimate my speed, and I hit a lot harder than people expect.”

Those aren’t the only points that Barrett wants to prove. He is also conscious of the fact that, at present, the scene is heavily dominated by talent from Europe. Barrett wants that to change and he sees himself as a part of a wave of US prospects who are ready to take over.

“The Europeans seem very relaxed and are obviously very confident and very comfortable in the ring. But what they are underestimating is that Americans don’t like to lose. If we feel overmatched, guess what? We step up,” he says.

“I hate losing and if someone feels like they are to run over me that changes my perspective on them. You can’t underestimate any of us. I see the Europeans backstage and they are all relaxed, messing around and laughing. You never see that backstage with Americans, we are all serious and we all have our game face on, nobody is talking to anyone else.

“I think the only thing that separates us and the Europeans right now is that kickboxing is more known there. I think that when it catches on here you are going to see a shift in momentum and the Europeans are going to have to learn that they will need to get their game faces on too. We’re coming.”