Now we can all see Josh Barnett party with Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa in that sports afterlife we like to call ‘The Asterisk Hall of Fame’. Josh Barnett was caught juicing up with performance enhancing substances known as steroids. But looking at Josh, he doesnt have the sure signs of roid use like ‘Backne‘ and ‘shrunken testicles’ (Do you want to look down there? I’ll take his word for it). Believe it or not, this is actually Josh’s second time being caught using steroids in his career (back in 2002 he was caught by the Nevada Athletic Commission for juicing up. He still denies it to this day). But hey, how can you blame Barnett from trying to every possible edge when he’s going toe to toe with The Last Emperor? When Fedor misses an overhand right, he hurts the atmosphere.
Well it costed him a chance to knock off the best fighter in modern history as well as his Affliction contract (or at least that’s what Tom Atencio implied on his super secret conference call if the second sample came back positive). So what does that mean for the Babyface Assassin? Dude could always go back to Japan and fight in Dream/Sengoku. He was actually the King of Pancrase in 2003 so going back to Japan cannot be ruled out. But more importantly, what does this mean for Affliction 3? Tom stated that there is ‘no consideration of postponing’ and that he has been talking with three fighters and he has a good relationship with Strikeforce. My (barely) college educated guess is: Bobby Lashley, Vitor Belfort and Brett Rogers. In the meantime, it was fun watching you in Affliction Barnett. Hopefully we’ll see you on HDNet in the Super Hulk tournament on DREAM. [Source]
UPDATE: Tom Atencio confirms Josh Barnett tested positive for steroids.
