Before Josh Barnett takes on Daniel Cormier tentatively in March for the Strikeforce GP title, the former UFC champ will take part in a pro wrestling match on the New Year’s Eve “Genki Desu Ka!!” card in Japan.
On Tuesday, promoters announced that Barnett will face Hideki Suzuki in the IGF pro wrestling portion of the card. Also added Tuesday is a pair of kickboxing bouts. Yuta Kubo will take on Nils Widlund, while Masaaki Noiri meets Kengo Sonoda.
The current “Genki Desu Ka!!” lineup is below.
Main Event (MMA)
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii
Dream Lightweight Title Bout
Shinya Aoki vs. Satoru Kitaoka
Dream Featherweight Title Bout
Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Takeshi “Lion” Inoue
Dream Bantamweight World GP
Semifinals: Bibiano Fernandes vs. Rodolfo Marques
Semifinals: Masakazu Imanari vs. Antonio Banuelos
Finals: Winner of Fernandes-Marques vs. Winner of Imanari-Banuelos
Reserve: Hideo Tokoro vs. Yusup Saadulaev
Other MMA Bouts
Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Ryo Chonan
Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Kazuyuki Miyata
Mixed Rules Bout (Two rounds: R1 kickboxing, R2 MMA)
Yuichiro Nagashima vs. Katsunori Kikuno
IGF Pro Wrestling Matches
Kazushi Sakuraba and Katsuyori Shibata vs. Shinichi Suzukawa and Atsushi Sawada
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Peter Aerts
Josh Barnett vs. Hideki Suzuki
Kickboxing Bouts
Yuta Kubo vs. Nils Widlund
Masaaki Noiri vs. Kengo Sonoda