Israel Adesanya has confirmed that he has parted ways with City Kickboxing (CKB), the Auckland gym that shaped him into a two-time UFC middleweight champion.
Adesanya made the announcement on his podcast, revealing that on Wednesday, May 20th, he sat down with head coach Eugene Bareman to deliver the news personally.
“I spoke to Eugene face to face and I told him I am not coming back to CKB,” he said.
The former champion first walked through the doors of CKB in 2009, then fully relocated to Auckland in 2010 to commit to his training there. Over the following years, he rose from a promising kickboxer to one of the most recognizable names in combat sports, a journey he credits significantly to the gym and everyone in it.
“CKB made me into the athlete that I am today,” he said. “They’ve trained a lot of great athletes, even better than myself.”
But Adesanya was also clear that the relationship was never one-sided. He acknowledged his own role in putting the gym on the global map.
He said, “I was one of the main pillars who put CKB on the map on the world stage to take it to the next level where people from all over the world want to come train at CKB. And I’m proud of that.”
The decision, he explained, was a long time coming and came down to a very specific need at this stage of his career. “What I need for myself is focused individual training,” he said.
Adesanya described the split as bittersweet and said he has been processing the emotions in his own way.
He stated, “Grief comes in waves for me. I’ve had great days, but also there’s days where I’m like… it’s a long time coming.”
He also framed the change as a necessary one. “Ins@nity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” he said. “It’s the right thing for me, especially where I’m at in my career. It’s exactly what I needed.”
Despite the weight of the departure, Adesanya said the two parties reached a mutual understanding, and that he wanted to address it directly rather than let others speak for him.
“I just want to get it out the way because I want you to hear it from the horse’s mouth, because no one else has spoken about it,” he noted.
