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Josh Barnett has landed where everyone thought he would — in Japan fighting for DREAM.

Former UFC, Pride and Affliction fighter, Josh Barnett, has found a new home in Japan as the heavyweight stand-out has signed with Dream and will likely make his promotional debut at their March 22 show later this month.

The signing was confirmed by sources close to the situation to MMAWeekly.com late Monday evening, and the promotion is expected to announce Barnett’s addition in the coming days.

The next question is, who is he going to fight? Tim Sylvia and Antonio Silva have both reportedly turned down fights with Barnett for DREAM.13. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of options left, so you can almost bank on DREAM finding a can for him at the last minute. M-1 has expressed interest in Fedor fighting Barnett (not for March 22), so I wouldn’t rule out that possibility for later this year, especially if M-1 and Strikeforce don’t reach a new agreement.

Image via Sherdog

What’s a promoter to do when an athletic commission says hell no to his main event? Well if you’re Monte Cox, you take that fight elsewhere. That’s what he did with the Tim Sylvia vs. Ray Mercer fight and that’s what he’s doing now with the Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims fight Ohio rejected two weeks ago. But instead of taking it to Alabama, which is now on the brink of regulating MMA, Cox is sending them to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada to headline an IFC card.

The International Fighting Confederation’s world super heavyweight title fight will be the main event of a 10-bout card coming to the Port City, tentatively scheduled for June 5.

Tim Sylvia, the former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion, will battle mixed martial artist Wes Sims for the IFC world title under the lights at Harbour Station.

Meanwhile, Sylvia has been tweeting how he’s “on the comback” and doesn’t want to fight “bums.”

HT: BE

Update: Another report states that Tim Sylvia will be fighting World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski (1-0 MMA) in an April 23 event in Massachusetts. However, Monte Cox says that fight and the Sims fight are both still in negotiations. Cox also said they turned down an offer to fight Josh Barnett on March 22 at DREAM.13, though didn’t say why. Apparently, DREAM is looking for another opponent.

Josh Barnett’s steroid appeal was pushed back for the fourth consecutive time yesterday when he failed to show up for a hearing with the CSAC. His attorney, who was present, was “shocked” when the commission said they couldn’t proceed without him.

“We’ve been diligently preparing to present Mr. Barnett’s case and his defense, and he was unable to be here today and we are extremely shocked and disappointed that the commission ruled that they would not go forward with the hearing without Mr. Barnett being present,” said Michael J. DiMaggio, an attorney representing Barnett. “It’s particularly surprising in light of the fact that we’re not aware of any rule or regulation that insists that he be here. Obviously, even criminal cases go forward without the accused present in some instances.”

What DiMaggio apparently didn’t know was the CSAC made it perfectly clear ahead of time that Barnett’s attendance was required.

Again Dodd countered by stating the original letter sent to Barnett outlined the manner in which he would have to proceed to regain his license to fight.

“The letter is very clear that you must appear before the commission,” Dodd said. “It doesn’t say anything else besides appear. You can bring counsel, but it says the word ‘appear’ in there.”

So where was Josh Barnett in all of this? Oh, he was in Japan wrestling Bob Sapp. And he wonders why the mega-contract offers aren’t rolling in.

His appeal has been rescheduled for April 20.

“Definitely something’s going to happen this year…As soon as any promotion out there stops bull—-ing and comes correct, that’s all. If they want me to fight, all they got to do is step up to the plate, throw me an opportunity and don’t put something in front of me that’s a slap in my face or ridiculous.”

—Josh Barnett on Hardcore Sports Radio, via Fanhouse, claiming he’ll fight when a promotion makes him an offer he deems acceptable

So let me get this straight. Josh Barnett gets popped for steroids three times. The latter of which ruins Affliction’s biggest main event two weeks before the show and sends the promotion into utter disarray. And now promotions aren’t willing to pay him the big bucks because he might be a liability? Wow, the nerve of those guys…

Image via Sherdog

Strikeforce has been gobbling up virtually all the big name talent not locked in a Zuffa contract as of late, and it looks like they’re not finished.

If you didn’t catch any of yesterday’s Sengoku Ninth Battle event, you at least need to watch this. Dan Hornbuckle brutally KO’d Akihiro Gono with a right head kick. Pretty sweet, at least right up until the point when you realize Gono might be seriously injured or worse. Gono had to be removed from the ring on a stretcher with head and neck injuries, but as bad as it looked the good news is he’s OK and is expected to make a full recovery.

As for the rest of the event, let’s just say it was one of those shows where nothing seemed to go according to plan. Satoru Kitaoka lost his first lightweight title defense. Misaki-Nakamura was billed as a middleweight number one contender’s bout. Misaki won but won’t get the middleweight title shot nor a paycheck because of his legal troubles outside the ring. The finals of the FWGP couldn’t have been more confusing. The two fighters who advanced to the final match didn’t necessarily deserve to be there. Michihiro Omigawa arguably should have lost his decision win over Marlon Sandro while Masanori Kanehara actually did lose his semi-final match. The fighter who beat Kanehara, Hatsu Hioki, suffered a concussion and was unable to continue, so you would think the reserve bout winner would get the spot. Nope, for some reason Sengoku officials passed over Chan Sung Jung who won the reserve bout and gave Kanehara the final spot instead.

In other Sengoku news, Satoshi Ishii announced his MMA debut for Sengoku’s 11/7 show. Hidehiko Yoshida is believed to be the front runner for his first opponent. Josh Barnett is also expected to be fighting on that card. And last but not least, Sengoku is the latest organization to enter the Fedor Emelianenko sweepstakes.

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Still haven’t heard anything back yet on Josh Barnett’s B sample, but word is finally coming out of the Barnett camp on the situation. Basically, he denies he ever knowingly took any steroids, believes the documentation of the sample that tested positive raises serious questions about its validity, and was extremely disappointed to learn that his test failure caused Affliction to make the “hasty” decision to cancel their event.

Josh Barnett’s positive steroid test didn’t just ruin Affliction’s main event, it appears it single-handily managed to bring the entire event down too. Instead of securing a replacement to fight Fedor, Affliction has decided to scrap the event altogether.

So get this. Not only did Josh Barnett fail a random drug test, he failed the CSAC’s first random drug test…ever.