“Leeroy Barnes is not Rough House” – Dean Amasinger

We last saw Dean ‘The Renegade’ Amasinger in early 2012 where he suffered a loss to Maciej Jewtuszko on Polish standout promotion KSW. Fast forward to 2015 and Amasinger, in the words of the old LL Cool J track, ‘Momma said knock you out’, is urging the public not to call his return to the cage a comeback. “I purposely never put anything out saying I had retired because I knew there was still a bit of unfinished business there. I had other things to focus on, other priorities at that time, fighting was not the priority.”

Amasinger’s recent resurgence begs the question firstly, why now, but secondly, what was the motivating factor. Amasinger offers an energetic response “I’m coaching Nick Osipczak on his comeback at the moment. We have always been great sparring partners. We were on The Ultimate Fighter reality series together. We spar with a different level of intensity than I do when I’m coaching my students. It just sort of got that fire going again.”

The picture taken, post fight at BAMMA 20, in which Rough House appeared together to celebrate Andre Winner’s victory over Colin Fletcher has fuelled speculation of a forthcoming announcement. It led many to ask whether we were seeing a Rough House resurgence with many of those out of the limelight looking to step back in. “The photo looked good. we went from boys to men together, we started in our early twenties we sparred hard and we’ve been through alot together.”says Amasinger as he recalls the moment when they all posed in the centre of the cage.

Those who witnessed the spat between Leeroy Barnes and Dean Amasinger within the last 24 hours may be left scratching their heads as to why Amasinger would want to clash a fellow team member for his comeback fight on the newly created MACTO Championships™. Amasinger is keen to put the record straight about who makes up Team Rough House. “Dan [Hardy] messaged me to ask ‘since when was Leeroy in Rough House?’ I was like ‘I know nothing about it’ When Macto tried to match us I messaged Dan to ask whether Leeroy was Rough House and he said ‘I don’t consider him part of the team. Dan is sort of the head of it all and his word is final. If I thought he was Rough House I would not want to fight him.”

Coming off the back of five consecutive losses Leeroy Barnes seems an odd choice for Amasinger to focus on. As likeable as Barnes is Amasinger was keen to explain he has no personal animosity towards the Blackpool based fighter. “He is not my version of Rough House. I don’t know why you would take offence to someone wanting to fight you when that’s the fight game, we fight. He was a name that was offered. He definitely wanted to fight me previously. If he doesn’t want to fight I’m not going to bully him into it. It’s like a Library book being offended by being taken out of the Library, it’s what is supposed to happen, so I don’t understand that. It is what it is, I don’t see a barrier at all. I’ve left this to MACTO Championships™.”

Whether we’ll see Leeroy Barnes vs Dean Amasinger is somewhat unclear at present. One thing is certain we will see Dean Amasinger’s return to the cage on 27th June when MACTO Championships™ hosts their inaugral event in Milton Keynes headlined by Nick Osipczak and an as yet unknown opponent as original challenger, Wendle Lewis, has withdrawn from the match up for personal reasons. Tickets are available now.

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