JOSH BARNETT’S BLOODSPORT XV

April 17, 2026

Zack Sabre Jr. . . . proves that he’s not called ‘The Technical Wizard’ just because he wants a cool nickname.

Royce Isaacs . . . carries on the proud tradition of pudgy suplex machines in shootstyle matches.

Timothy Thatcher . . . works young Charlie Dempsey like he’s trying to recreate matches from 1911!

ANGEL VERDUZCO vs. MATT MAKO

This is too short to really accomplish anything, but it does a decent job of making sure both men look good coming out of it. Between his amateur stylings and gangly appearance, Verduzco looks like he’d have been a good fit for Maeda’s UWF or UWFI, especially when he catches Mako in a single leg crab. So, between Verduzco’s flashiness and selling along with Mako’s striking, the live crowd gets a pretty good show here, even if it’s on the short side.

ULKA SASAKI vs. JOE DASHOU

This is another one that I’d have liked to see go longer, but it was fun while it lasted. The only altogether weird thing was that Joe’s opening suplex seemed to play more for comedy than anything else. It didn’t seem to hurt Sasaki or really have any sort of effect on him, and it’s all the more odd that the second suplex that he does is what gets Sasaki into position for a kata-gatame. Their matwork is tight and fluid, with both pulling off some impressive looking reversals and counters. One would think that the match would be determined on the mat with Sasaki looking to have the edge in striking and Dashou in suplexes, and maybe it would have if Dashou’s attempt to shoot in for a takedown hadn’t resulted in a knee to the face. But I guess that’s karma for his cheap shot that started the match.

ZACK SABRE Jr. vs. RAY JAZ

If one is a fan of matwork, then this is something they’d enjoy, which isn’t a shocker with Sabre involved, and the fact that Jaz is able to keep up with and go along with whatever tricked out thing that he comes up with is a bonus. Jaz also knows that there’s a difference between keeping up with Sabre and actually beating him, and that the latter is a much more daunting task, so he employs the strategy of using throws and slams to stun Sabre in order to get something locked in to finish him off. He doesn’t get that far, but Sabre’s selling shows that he is getting some mileage out of it. But when it seems like the next big slam will be the last one that he needs, Sabre manages to tie him up before he can slam him down and he gets enough leverage to force the submission. Like the matches that came before it, this is a bit on the short side and the story is relatively simple, but a match doesn’t need to be complex to be worth watching, it just needs to be executed well, and this is as good an example as one can find.

MIYU YAMASHITA vs. JANAI KAI

Despite going roughly the same length as the previous three matches, this is the first one that doesn’t feel like more time would have been helpful. This comes together well enough to create a few cool moments, like Kai’s ramped up Dragon sleeper and Miyu finding a way to make it work against Kai as much as it was working for her, and Kai’s missed charging kick into the corner leaving her wide open for a leg kick from Miyu. But, considering they’re both being presented as dangerous strikers (if their respective nicknames are any indication), it’s strange watching them pelt each other with kicks and get nowhere. It’s not until Kai’s missed corner kick that something feels consequential. They both swing for the proverbial fences, and don’t always connect, but even when they do, neither woman seems to be all that hurt other than when the match is winding down and they tease Miyu getting counted out, and then Miyu’s spin kick gives her the KO win. Maybe the idea was to show that they can both take it as well as they can dish it, but they take it too far and wind up making their primary attack look weak as a result, and Miyu’s KO looks more like luck than skill.

ROYCE ISAACS vs. SHANE MERCER

This may be the most carny thing I’ve ever seen, and it freaking rules for it! This match, more than pretty much anything else I’ve seen from this group, perfectly encapsules the pro-style/shootstyle hybrid. One minute these two beefy heavyweights are trying to work the mat like an Anjo/Tamura match, and then Mercer does a backflip slam like Scott Steiner in the early 90’s, and he even busts out an Attitude Adjustment to try to get in a sleeper. Isaacs shows his freakish strength by deadlifting Mercer into a German (with a great sell job from Mercer) and also getting out of an elbow attack by lifting Mercer into a DVD and segueing into a nasty grounded Dragon sleeper for the submission. This is pretty much the definition of a freak show, where you can’t look away because you want to see what happens next.

MASASHI TAKEDA vs. PETE DUNNE

If the last match was the height of the Bloodsport hybrid style, then this is the nadir. They both show some good stuff and pull out some nice surprises (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a one quarter nelson before), but nothing matters for more than a few seconds. On two separate occasions Dunne manages to bend Takeda’s arm on the mat and hits a big stomp, but it doesn’t have any effect at all. Later, they get into a full blown strike exchange and the first couple of shots really seem to rock Dunne, but he returns fire and it degenerates into both of them standing there and trading shots and nobody moving. Just what we don’t need, the shoostyle equivalent of Kobashi/Sasaki in the Dome!

The one theme they manage to lay out is Dunne’s knack for counters and escapes. It looks like Takeda will have him trapped, but Dunne always finds a way out. It starts out with basic things like a sleeper or kimura and winds up leading to Takeda taking him over in a flying armbar, but Dunne still finds a way out. And it’s nothing overly showy or contrived, Dunne always does something simple to get himself the distance or leverage he needs. I guess it’s arguable that Dunne winning is the payoff, since Takeda never submits him, but it does look several times like Dunne ought to have been called knocked out. The announcers also play up Takeda’s pain tolerance, which I guess explains his no-selling and the fact that Dunne can only submit him with his triangle armbar by also bending his fingers (illegal in Bloodsport). The live crowd sure was excited at the finish, but I was left wondering why one of the longer matches on the show didn’t make better use of its time.

ERICK STEVENS vs. FUMINORI ABE

Anyone who only knows or remembers Stevens from his days in ROH, teaming with Joey Ryan or having wicked chop battles with Roderick Strong, will be a bit surprised to see this. Abe and Stevens put on some of the best matwork of this entire show and it’s a more UWF/MMA style of matwork than the pro-style that Sabre and Jaz were doing. Stevens dodges a punch and rolls Abe into a kata-gatame in an almost seamless sequence that gets a Tamon Honda namedrop, but Honda never did it that smoothly, although look who he had to work with. There are a couple of goofy bits to this, such as Abe going to the eyes to escape the sleeper and they work the UWF dualling legbar deal but instead of each of them trying to torque their hold more, they trade off slaps and headbutts. Oh, and Stevens makes Abe put the ‘Blood’ in Bloodsport. Abe’s ground and pound finish using headbutts is unique, but the rule violation puts a bit of a damper on it, it’s just like Dunne/Thatcher from the year before, the fact that he can break the rules in clear view of the ref and then go on to win only makes the ref look incompetent and the win feel tainted.

TIMOTHY THATCHER vs. CHARLIE DEMPSEY

Bloodsport may not be a full blown shootstyle promotion, but this match completely captures the spirit of what Takada and Maeda and Yamazaki were doing forty years ago; Thatcher and Dempsey’s match is, for all intents and purposes, a pro wrestling match. But their idea of pro wrestling is stripped down to the bare bones. There’s very little here that would be considered ‘performing’ only Thatcher’s reaction to Dempsey’s last slap would fall into that category and also Thatcher passing over the post-match handshake because his shoulder was still hurt from the elbow strikes and chickenwing. They both simply go out there and try to win the match by whatever (legal) means are necessary, be it slaps and European uppercuts, submissions, suplexes, or in the case of Dempsey’s eventual win, managing to put them all together.

If the Isaacs/Mercer match was carny in a freak show manner, this is the more traditional sense of the term. Thatcher and Dempsey try to stretch each other out and hit each other as hard as possible and add little nasty touches like grinding the forearm into the face or the elbow into the back and shoulder. They’re essentially showing what a ‘real’ pro wrestling match would look like. There are a few little nods to modern pro wrestling, but they still have their place and logic in the context of this match. Thatcher’s backslide isn’t for a surprise near fall, but to get Dempsey into a better position for him to get a front headlock on. Thatcher’s stumbling out of the ring after the big slap wasn’t for laughs, but because Dempsey hit him so hard that he lost his equilibrium. There’s no over the top hatred between them or any sort of story that they try to instill. Both men do what they do for that particular moment in time, and nothing else. Every generation has a match or rivalry that they consider to be the definitive version of what wrestling is: Thesz vs. Gagne, Funk vs. Brisco, Flair vs. Steamboat etc. Thatcher and Dempsey don’t try to update that for 2026, but rather they go the opposite way and give the modern fans a taste of what Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt were doing in the early 20^th century.

SHAYNA BASZLER vs. NATTIE NEIDHARDT

Between the count out finish and the hatred between them in the last few minutes, this is certainly memorable. But until those last few minutes, this is rather pedestrian. The one really cool moment is when Shayna challenges Nattie to get on the mat with her, and Nattie surprises her with a Sakuraba-style roll into an ankle lock, and Shayna calmly counters into her sleeper. But that’s the exception instead of the rule, they never seem to find their footing and do anything as far as establishing a theme or making anything feel important.

Once Shayna threatens to give Nattie the sharpshooter and tempers start to flare, this picks up in a hurry. Despite the tease of it, it’s actually Nattie who gets the sharpshooter on but Shayna escapes and counters into her sleeper, which Nattie rolls out of it and into one of her own. Nattie’s sleeper is so tight that the only way to escape is for Shayna to dive outside of the ring. Shayna gets another sleeper on the floor and Nattie kicks off to knock her into the steps and keep her from beating the ref’s count. Between the finish, outside the ring antics and the post-match brawl with the seconds breaking things up, this is definitely closer to the pro-style side of things, and it honestly wouldn’t look that out of place inside of a WWE ring. But, by straying from the norm of what we’ve seen on these shows, this finds its own way to stand out.

JOSH BARNETT vs. YUJI NAGATA

This is easily the most ‘UWF’ match of the card; even the few pro-style things that they do wouldn’t look out of place on a UWF show. Barnett does a few flashy things, like the takedown to get the legbar and the transition from STF to grounded waistlock, but by and large, this is a technically sound match, that’s mostly on the mat. It’s not exactly worked at a breakneck pace, which isn’t a surprise given Nagata’s age and Barnett’s size, but both men stay relatively busy with a nice mix of amateur and UWF style matwork.

Each man has a specific limb they’re targeting, the knee for Josh and the arm for Nagata, and both of them get on some dangerous holds that seems like they could end the match, although neither of them gets that far. In fact, that’s probably as close to pro-style as they get, each of them is trapped in a submission with seemingly no escape, until they manage to find the smallest of openings to get out, although Barnett’s escape of the seated armbar is much more egregious in that respect. The couple of callbacks to their 2003 Tokyo Dome main event (Nagata beat Barnett with a rolling kick) are nice touches and was just about the perfect setup for Barnett’s eventual KO. This may not be as flashy as Sabre/Jaz or as surreal as Thatcher/Dempsey, but it’s a perfectly solid and worthwhile outing from a couple of guys who’ve been around the block a few times.

Conclusion: This is the usual fun show from Barnett and the Bloodsport crew. If you’re looking for something straight out of a UWF/U-Inter show then this won’t satisfy you, but it’s a great example of the niche hybrid that Bloodsport carved out for themselves.