Eugene Bareman, the head coach of City Kickboxing, recently expressed his opinion on the upcoming rematch between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira.
In an interview, Bareman stated that if he had a choice, he would have preferred to wait longer and give Adesanya more time to prepare after his last outing.
Bareman believes that if he had more say in the matter, he would have opted for a different approach. He expressed that he would have preferred to take a cue from boxing and have Adesanya face a couple of warm-up bouts before the rematch. However, the coach understands that the UFC doesn’t provide such an option, and stars have to face their opponents without any warm up bouts.
Bareman also revealed that Adesanya was very determined to face Pereira again. The middleweight was adamant that he must be the next person to face Pereira. According to Bareman, Adesanya was even willing to face Pereira on a few weeks’ notice, which became a possibility when Jiri Prochazka withdrew from the bout at UFC 282.
Adesanya apparently wasn’t aware of this at all and was caught off guard when asked about it.
One MMA fan remarked:
“Israel Adesanya finding out his head coach Eugene Bareman not agreeing with his quick turn around is yikes. This should have been discussed between them months ago, no?”