Coach Eugene Bareman recently opened up about his star pupil Israel Adesanya losing two consecutive fights and claimed that the former UFC champion’s loss to Sean Strickland was harder to accept than the Dricus du Plessis loss.
Adesanya faced Strickland in a middleweight title fight at UFC 293 last September. While the Nigerian-born Kiwi was expected to breeze past Strickland, ‘Tarzan’ surprisingly dominated the fight and ultimately took the 185-pound strap home via unanimous decision.
Israel Adesanya then announced taking some time off and went on a hiatus for almost a year before returning against du Plessis at UFC 305 earlier this month. ‘Stillknocks’ snatched the middleweight title off Strickland earlier this year and managed to defend it against Adesanya via a fourth-round submission.
During a recent appearance on the Who The Fook Are These Guys?, Israel Adesanya’s coach addressed his shocking loss against Strickland and outlined why it was a harder loss to digest compared to the du Plessis one. He said:
“It was a very close fight, and at the end of the day Israel fatigued…That position, Israel’s done that a thousand times and got out of it a thousand times… You know what to do, but your brain’s not working, and your body’s not responding because you’re so fatigued.”
Eugene Bareman continued:
“The Strickland loss, he’ll never get over. You just fought badly, and it was unexplainable. It’s intangible. It’s not measurable what caused it… But the Dricus fight, he was doing well. It was a great contest, and he got outmaneuvered. He got outdone… You can figure out exactly what happened, follow the path, figure out went wrong, and it’s very traceable… Any loss is hard, but trust me this one’s a lot easier to take than the Strickland one.” [H/t: MMA Junkie]
Watch Eugene Bareman’s full interview below: