Barnett will Defend Openweight King of Pancrase Title in 2013

http://www.mmaweekly.com/josh-barnett-agrees-to-defend-king-of-pancrase-title-next-year

Top 10 heavyweight Josh Barnett will return to Pancrase next year to defend his openweight King of Pancrase title. The Warmaster, according to yahoo.co.jp,
had a meeting with Pancrase CEO Masakazu Sakai after Barnett’s recent
professional wrestling match with Shinichi Suzukawa at Inoki Genome
Federation.
The meeting seems to have been fruitful. Barnett has agreed to defend his KOP title next year during the Pancrase
20th Anniversary Tour, against any opponent Sakai wants to put in front
him. Barnett stated that he is a part of the Pancrase family and wants
the legendary organization and its fighters to reach new heights of
popularity.

Barnett won the openweight title way back in 2003 from Yuki Kondo. He
defended it twice the same year, against Kazuo Takahashi and Semmy
Schilt, before going on to represent the promotion in Pride and around
the world, but a whopping 10 years have now passed since Barnett last
defended the original King of Pancrase title.
The New Global standard has been adopted as a sort of motto for
Pancrase since it found new owners. The amount of progress the
orginaztion has made in a few months is really impressive. Luring
Barnett back into the Pancrase fold is just the latest example of that.

Barnett hasn’t fought a mixed martial arts bout since May, when he lost in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix final to Daniel Cormier.

LOL what? 10 years later? Sorry, you're not Champion.

It's part of the 20th anniversary tour Pancrase is putting on. Don't be such a zuffa newb, cheese us crust!

GDPofDRC wrote:

It's part of the 20th anniversary tour Pancrase is putting on. Don't be such a zuffa newb, cheese us crust!

If he wants to fight for a title, fine. But call him Champion? I will not. Sorry I'm pretty anti Josh. He is a HW Chael Sonnen....that actually accomplished something. Multiple time cheater with annoying need to go all WWE on the mic. Let's not ever forget he alone took down Affliction and cost us a matchup with Fedor.

Last defense of the openweight title : Arm barred Semmy Shilt. Legendary.

GDPofDRC wrote:

Last defense of the openweight title : Arm barred Semmy Shilt. Legendary.

Was he tested before or after the fight?

No, Semmy was not tested that I know of.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/10/25/3555142/josh-barnett-to-defend-king-of-pancrase-title-in-2013
UPDATE: Sherdog talked with Barnett's manager, Leland Labarr, who said there's nothing to the Pancrase rumors:

Quote :

It’s not true. I guess [Pancrase] talked to Josh while [Josh] was [in Japan], and they said they would love to have him back, but there was nothing [to it],” LaBarre told Sherdog.com. “Certainly Josh would never indicate that he was going to go fight there, and they never reached out to me. There is nothing imminent. There is nothing that we are planning on doing. I can’t imagine that happening. There are no discussions, and there have been no discussions.

Good, I really hope he ends up fighting in th UFC. He's a great talent and a better Chael Sonnen when it comes to trolling... Also a much better fighter than schale...