Fight Night Flashback: Josh Barnett and Roy Nelson

Fight Night Flashback punches the DeLorean to 88 MPH to showcase the past bouts of fighters on upcoming UFC cards. This week, we look back at Josh Barnett and Roy Nelson, heavyweights scheduled to battle at UFC Fight Night 75 on Sept. 26 in Japan.

Josh Barnett

It was the year 2000.

Y2K had horribly disappointed on the disaster scale, Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia, Olympic fever gripped the city of Sydney, and a baby-faced assassin named Josh Barnett made his UFC debut.

In the only super heavyweight bout in the promotion's history, Barnett survived some hairy moments early with the monstrous Gan McGee, before styling on the 6-foot-10 behemoth with some hellacious, fight-ending ground-and-pound.

Barnett would eventually win the UFC heavyweight title, defect to PRIDE in Japan after a failed drug test for steroids, dabble in professional wrestling, and terrorize Strikeforce, before finally returning to the UFC in 2013.

Roy Nelson

The fantastically bellied Roy Nelson wasn't fighting professionally in the year 2000, but eight years later he was already a veteran of the sport, showing off his chin-checking knockout power against anyone willing to engage in a perilous little game of fist chicken.

Case in point: this IFL bout against Brad Imes from May 16, 2008.

A former "The Ultimate Fighter" contestant, and the bizarre owner of two rare gogoplata finishes, Imes was toast once he tasted Nelson's power, falling victim to a massive overhand right and a few coffin nails for good measure.

Nelson would go on to win the 10th season of "The Ultimate Fighter," eventually crafting a solid UFC career as an excellent gatekeeper, dutifully separating the wheat from the chaff in the upper echelon of the heavyweight division.