Brad Barnes to Retire from Bar Fights in the Land of Enchantment

Brad Barnes to Retire from Bar Fights in the Land of Enchantment
By:Dominic Velando05 April 2011

"It was like going into 'Thunderdome'," Brad Barnes reminisces. "It was like having to fight Master Blaster."

Some like to say that MMA is in its "infancy." If so, then Barnes hails from a time when the sport was in the fetal position. When it was barely even a sport, but more of a thrill-seeking exercise for tough guys with a couple screws loose.

Barnes, 28, will end his fighting career at Friday's "24/7 Entertainment Pro MMA Event" in Midland, Texas, where he lives and works as a police officer. Most of his fights are undocumented (he estimates his record to be "a bunch/less") and took place two hours from Midland in Carlsbad, New Mexico from around 2002 to 2005,.

It was a much smaller world then. These days, Barnes prepares for his match against Matt Holland with his team, Rhino BJJ as well as Bruno Bastos and Nova Uniao in Dallas. Most recently, he made the 350 mile journey in style, on a flight paid for by his sponsors. A few years ago, such luxuries were out of the question.

Training partners in football-crazed West Texas were in short supply. Barnes recalls even having to explain to most people just what MMA is. Listeners either equated it to pro wrestling or gay sex.

Few fighters made any money to speak of and shows were mainly happening in Houston, over eight hours away. at the time, promoters were definitely not in the business of paying anyone to travel that far.

So to New Mexico he went.

"It's a two-hour drive, but really it's an hour, because there's a time change right there," Barnes explained. "Which is funny because you're like, 'Alright, we gotta be there when? We got plenty of time. Holy crap! No, we don't!'

On the way, he would pass a sign beaming: New Mexico: Land of Enchantment.

"Bulls**t," Barnes says. "It should say: New Mexico: Thanks for not leaving immediately."

Once in Carlsbad is when the real fun began. "[The event] in a freakin' bar in the open-patio area," Barnes recalled. "The Post Time Saloon. Before your fight, you're trying to keep yourself from getting in a barfight with thirty, drunk New Mexico dudes that you're fighting their buddy. There was no special area for the fighters or anything. Nothing."

"Then, after that, it was, 'Hey! We're hangin' out!' So you get out of the cage and you're standing around the cousins, uncles and brothers of the guy you just beat on, and you're like, "What's goin' on, guys? "

Barnes, or "Lunchbox," as he is sometimes known, remembers one fight in particular against a regular patron at the saloon. "I fought this dude, who, everybody in town knew him," Barnes said. "He was just a fat barfly named "Butters."

"I tapped 'Butters' with a rear naked choke in round one. But it was like fighting a tornado of violence and bacon grease."

But Barnes' favorite fight is one that comes up whenever he speaks with friend and matchmaker for the fights in Carlsbad, Jason Leigh.

"I can't punch for nothin'," Barnes admits. "But I can kick really good...So, I was warming up leg-kicking and we were in this room that made it echo really loud. So, whatever bit of skill and power I had, it made it exponentially more powerful-sounding. And I seen the guy's head kind of lean outside the doorframe, and 'whack', [I would] hit the bag, and then I seen his head dart back in."

When the referee asked the fighters if they were ready, Barnes' opponent shook his head 'no'. Some confusion ensued as the referee deliberated with Barnes' cowardly opponent.

"Jason [Leigh] is looking up at the guy like, 'Dude, you at least get a green name on mma.tv! Come on!' The guy was like, 'I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm outta here.'"

"Jason says thats the quickest win in MMA history," Barnes jokes.

With popularity, growth and money, the sport now favors athletes over barflies like "Butters" or self-professed "fat boys" like Barnes. Though he intends to compete in grappling tournaments, he's done fighting . The decision comes from a number of factors.

One reason is his passion for teaching. Promoter and trainer Saul Soliz once simply told Barnes that, as a fighter, he "sucks". In contrast, the feedback he receives when participating in the Gracie Combatives Instructor Courses as part of his law enforcement training is encouraging and fuels his love of teaching jiu jitsu to his students and his son.

Barnes would also like to retire to make way for the young and hungry up-and-comers.

"I'd love to go on for the next ten years and be like Dan Severn or Travis Fulton and just fight cans and make a couple hundred bucks," Barnes admitted. "That would be awesome. But is that really doing anybody any good?"

As for this upcoming fight: "I'm doing it because I'm in my hometown, I might as well," Barnes said. "Everybody here knows I've fought, they've just never seen it because they obviously don't want to drive to New Mexico, the 'Land of Enchantment' (whoo!)"

"It's kind of serving its own purpose and after that, I kind of feel like it would be a disservice to other people in the MMA community to have a fat, has-been, never-was guy on a card.

Perhaps this is confusing to anyone who has seen the poster for this Friday's event with Barnes' image super-imposed many times larger than the other fighters depicted, similar to the first time the Genie emerged from his lamp in Disney's Aladdin.

"I'm thinking I'm gonna be little-bitty along the bottom [of the poster]," Barnes said. "Clay [Hantz] said it looks like the 'Puppet Master' and his minions on there.

"But, that's cool. I've got that poster sitting up in my man-cave, and I can show my kid. He's five years old right now. When he's ten years old [I can say], 'Hey! Daddy used to fight professionally. I'll knock your ass out...Brush your f*ckin' teeth."

In top shape, Barnes has shed 30 lbs since January. "I just want to lose weight, be happy and do jiu jitsu, because I've got everything I need."

Well, there is one other thing.

"I just want a little bit of freaking credit where credit is do because, damn, I was the only guy championing MMA in West Texas. There's people [now] that own gyms that make money off of the sport that they said was freakin' gay and stupid."

As Barnes tells it, he would then see those same people who dismissed MMA as "gay" training six weeks later.

"And then their meathead buddies are in a ring six weeks later, and you're like 'Hey dude.' [They replied] "Oh, we started our own team. It's called, 'Team Awesome.'"

For now, he'll just have to enjoy his face on a poster and a fight in front of a hometown crowd. And against a guy who didn't just do some shots at the bar or was picked from the crowd.

"Thank God that stuff doesn't happen anymore," Barnes says. "Because it sure as heck used to happen."