Danny Barlow | Relentless By Nature

No one would have blamed Barlow for pulling out of the fight with new opponent Nikolay Veretennikov, but as we’ve mentioned before, he’s from Memphis, and folks from there are built different. So he wasn’t leaving that check on the table.

“No excuses,” said Barlow. “I kind of grew up playing injured. Injuries never really stopped me; it just slowed me down. I feel like I got three more limbs and that's how I played basketball, that's how I played football, and that's how I fight. And it's not my first time fighting with a broken arm. As an amateur I hyperextended my right arm and it was gone, but I was dropping the left. So I'm used to making those adjustments. I thought I could do it.” 

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So he did. It wasn’t easy, but Barlow scored a split decision win over Veretnnikov to improve to 9-0 as a pro heading into a Saturday matchup with Sam Patterson. And yes, the left arm is back in full working order.

“It's better than it's ever been,” he said. “I'm taking and giving with it, so I've been able to block kicks this fight camp with it, and I've been able to punch with it. But it's crazy because I never really cared that there was certain stuff I couldn't do with the arm. You know how you got that mean coach that's like, ‘You ready? And if you ain't ready, we still going out.’ (Laughs) That's how I kind of treated it. It's like, man, you ready? And if he ain't ready, we still going. Now I just feel like the arm’s coming with me.”

Good news for Barlow and his fans. Bad news for England’s Patterson, who may want to lean on the ground game that has seen him end seven of his 12 pro wins by submission. The Brit has some hands, too, but regardless of what Patterson brings to fight night, the 29-year-old Barlow is ready for it all. That’s why he’s here, to fight in a mixed martial arts fight, not a kickboxing match. If he can get Patterson out of there with that left hand on the feet, so be it, but if his opponent nullifies his standup game, he’ll go where he has to in order to win, because that’s the objective – to win. 

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“That just comes from the way we train, it comes from your upbringing,” Barlow said. Like I said, that's how I played ball, that's how we grew up. I guess it comes from not feeling sorry for yourself. It's the way I was trained because it's a break you or make you sport. The way I started training with my coach, he always told me, don't feel sorry for yourself. You going to do the work anyway. So I know not to feel sorry for myself. And if we’re still awake, we fight. If I'm still conscious, I'm fighting.” 

So despite having a perfect pro record, Barlow has been to the deep waters, and he swam like an Olympian while there. To do that at the highest level of the sport has to be a huge confidence builder, but he doesn’t necessarily see it that way in the conventional sense.

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“To be honest, as far as my confidence goes, it’s always something that I sit right next to fear. I sit it right next to excitement. I sit it right next to sadness. I sit it right next to joy. I just feel like confidence is another needed emotion. So it really never changes. I train with confidence, and I basically use all those emotions as motivation. But with confidence, there has to be faith. So this all just built more faith in myself that I can do it.”

That’s a tough man to beat.