Photo credit: Phil Lambert/ BKFC
Reggie Barnett Jr on Jarod Grant “I am his biggest test”
Reggie Barnett Jr clashes with Jarod Grant for his interim bantamweight world title at BKFC Tampa 2. This goes down on July 23rd at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
Barnett Jr once again came on Bowks Talking Bouts and touched on multiple topics before this key bout. Excerpts from our chat are below.
Reggie Barnett Jr
Rumblings of participating in a 125 lb tournament and the recent stretch of inactivity for RBJ
“After August, I kind of just I guess got lazy and got complacent. In a dark place for a little while. I wasn’t really training. Just kind of meandering and being a dad I suppose. I always say I can wear both hats if and when I want to…I was wearing out my coach’s hat and using it as an excuse not to get off my ass. Stop wallowing in what really wasn’t a failure in anybody’s eyes but my own. A fight’s a fight, a win’s a win, a loss is a loss…But moving forward I was like well I want to go to my weight where I know I’m truly comfortable.”
Reggie Barnett Jr continued, “Maybe it’s just in my mind Johnny (Bedford) is just too big. We went at it twice and I hit that man with everything but the kitchen sink. He still just looked at me and hit me as hard as he could. So, much respect to him, I mean go back and watch. I would hit him bing, bing, bing, bing, bing and he would hit once, bow!… (125lbs) that’s where my boxing titles are 126, 128, 130. Dave said we could possibly do a flyweight tournament. I was given a date and that date got pushed back. I was given another date and I heard nothing.”
BKFC Tampa 2
Overall thoughts on Jarod Grant in terms of skillset and resume
“Jarod is a really skilled boxer. I give him credit. If you let him dictate the pace, he’ll do what initially I came into this sport doing which is outboxing people. But this is bare-knuckle fighting and I can fight both. I feel like I’m a better boxer than him but I am an incredibly better bare-knuckle fighter than him. There’s a difference between the two. It took me a while even within this sport for that switch to go off. Shit, in the last (Johnny) Bedford fight I forgot that I was a bare-knuckle fighter for a second there at the beginning of the fight.”
“Then y’all saw the switch go off. It went from me trying to outbox him to a bare-knuckle fight back to me trying to outbox him (laughs). Then I had to make the switch again like hold on this is not a boxing match. But I take nothing away from Jarod. He’s a great fighter. I don’t think he’s truly, truly been tested yet. I think for me, I am his biggest test. For myself against him, it’s not a test, it’s a question mark. Are you still where you need to be, where you want to be or are you fading out? I mean that’s just a question I’m going to have to ask myself.”
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