It’s certainly a big fight. Not my biggest fight ever. See Aleksander runs about 6-5, 253. Semmy Schilt  was 7-1, 286 at one point. That one was certainly — well, then you got Gan McGee , 6-1 [and] 320 … 312. It’s kind of a toss-up between those two. Certainly a big fight — not gargantuan. Man I’m feeling great. I’ve got a great team around me. I’m training now with Eric Paulson in Orange County Shoot Wrestling. I got a lot of great guys coming in helping me out. Rampage, who’s now started coming in three days a week to work with me, so I’m kinda like a magnet. People are just kinda floating around me and it’s really helping me out a lot. And I’ve got an incredible strength-and-conditioning guy in Lou Smith, who’s got a gym called Lou’s Training Systems here in Anaheim. And basically, when you get that kind of environment built around you, it does … it not only gives you the sort of confidence that you’re gonna be in shape, sharp, ready to go, but it also keeps the fire inside when training’s tough, when you don’t want to wake up at eight o’clock in the morning, when you got nagging injuries. All that kind of stuff. A support group like that, kind of positive energy, makes a huge difference.

Now, I mean, they haven’t really announced all the participants yet. I mean, this is going to be a star-studded tournament. A chance to make a name for yourself — not really make a name for yourself, you already made a name for yourself — but to make a big splash. How do you feel you’re going to do in this tournament?

I feel like I’m going to win it. I mean, honestly, every Turkish get-up, every sprawl I hit, every punch I throw — I feel like I’m going to win. This is really sort of my real return. When I came back to fight Cro Cop the second time I stepped in the ring but I wasn’t ready to be fighting yet. I just took it because I didn’t know when I was going to get another shot and, uhh, you know I have a bit of a attitude in the fact that I just don’t really give a shit about getting in the ring. If you’re going to hit me — I don’t care if you’re Cro Cop who knocks peoples’ heads off into the second row or if you’re Nogueira triangling everybody every two seconds — I just don’t really care. If you’re going to do that, go ahead and do it — but don’t think you’re going to get away with it scott-free.

Now, you were at the fights here tonight at UFC 59. You saw Andrei Arlovski  get taken out by Tim Sylvia . I mean, you’re the former UFC heavyweight champion. What do you think about the state of the UFC heavyweight division today?

It’s certainly not on the same caliber as when it was me and Randy and Pedro Rizzo , Kevin Randleman , Ricco Rodriguez . I mean, you gotta remember when Arlovski was fighting in that division, he got knocked out twice. He’s still a tough kid and he’s a tough guy now. He had the fight in his hands and he just — I don’t know if it was overconfidence, ego, just a mental fart — I don’t know. But he gave the guy, you know, Sylvia, his chance to win the fight. Basically Sylvia’s got a punchers chance in every single fight he’s got. Even if you match him up against, let’s say, Sem Schilt, who I think is probably his worst type of opponent, he’s got a puncher’s chance. You can never honestly say that guy has no chance of winning because all he needs is one punch, one hand and it’s all over with.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Anything else you’d like to tell everybody?

Anytime. I know you guys like to talk a lot of shit on the Internet and whatnot. Hey, no sweat off my back. You guys are all putting b-a-r-n-e-t-t. That’s pretty good so everybody knows who you’re running your mouth about. But, at any rate, even though I’m not fighting here in the States right now, hey, I plan to give the best sort of performance that I can give on this Pay-Per-View coming up and hopefully keep in touch with my fans and even my haters through things like this and joshbarnett.tv.

Thanks again Josh.