Eugene Bareman is considered as a very serious coach and widely respected. But in this particular camp, Bareman took a page from the widely ridiculed Joshua Fabia and brought a blade into the cage.
Bareman coaches many prominent mixed martial artists, including Israel Adesanya and Dan Hooker.
According to reports, he brought machetes to the gym to fend against complacency.
Israel Adesanya established himself in the kickboxing community before winning the middleweight title in the UFC. Many people rank Adesanya as one of the all-time best UFC champions.
The odds favor Israel Adesanya to defeat Alex Pereira in their upcoming UFC 281 contest. However, Adesanya disagreed with those odds despite having successfully defended his middleweight title five times.
Prior to the event Bareman overhauled the camp.
Bareman told to Combat TV,
“There’s a reason and we as a group of coaches felt that there was like a little bit of complacency amongst some of the senior guys. They were a little bit too comfortable and we decided as a group of coaches to address that.”
Dan Hooker said that knives were drawn in response to Bareman’s remarks made during his appearance on The MMA Hour :
“Knives were pulled, legit knives. He would have had them on this chair, there were a number of moments. He’s always packing. We got a few big telling offs, he kicked the hornets nest a few times. It had to happen to wake everyone up, maybe we were being complacent. After that, we definitely reached a new level. He demanded more out of us.“
Israel Adesanya made an appearance in the same programme. He corroborated Dan Hooker’s assertions, even describing instances in which Bareman would bring a machete to the gym and flaunt it like a kid with a pricey new toy.
“There was a period of two to three weeks, it’s like show and tell. He’d bring a new knife to the gym, not to intimidate, he’s just a f**king weirdo. He’s one of those guys that goes to the bushes, hunting deer. He even brought a machete to the gym one day, a cool machete. It’s like a kid with a new toy, he makes jokes about it.”